Patient Surveys. Someone's got your stats...

Many hospitals across the nation use Press-Ganney surveys to measure patient satisfaction with their Emergency Department visit. You probably only hear about the results once every third full moon, but there is a profile assigned to your name. Someone is paying attention, even if its not you.

I find that the stuff that I complain about is in sync with patient complaints, but usually action to remedy the problems are variable and inconsistent at best. Well, add this a the long list of people and organizations following your stats and setting goals for you. The federal government is caring enough to link dollars, medicare dollars!, to hospitals tracking patient experiences. The information will be posted on consumer web-sites, which will allow people to vote with their feet.

The silver lining here is that this gives EM docs an opportunity to make long needed improvements and gain administrative support.... At least in theory.

Click the link on the title above to read the WSJ article.