Hospitalist Groups Release Patient Satisfaction White Paper
In early 2007 a group on private practice hospitalist groups formed a think tank that we call the Phoenix Group. This group has been meeting each spring and fall to discuss issues that we feel require attention and focus, both for our own interests as well as those of hospital medicine as a whole. In March 2008 the topic was patient satisfaction and HCAHPS. The discussion was extremely valuable to group members, and all of us benefited from the education we received on the topic from Joe Carmichael, president of NRC/Picker.
The Phoenix Group has just released its white paper summarizing our collective views on the inadequacy of the current system used by many hospitals. You are invited to read this and other Phoenix Group white papers at www.phoenixgroupwhitepaper.com . The authors, all CEOs and thought leaders in hospital medicine, conclude the survey tools currently utilized by hospitals are often misapplied to measure patient satisfaction at the individual physician level. This may result in judgments’ on a physician’s capability that are statistically unsupportable. This is not only unfair and misleading but may also have a deleterious effect on physician morale, which in turn creates the very opposite of what the hospital is hoping to achieve by using the survey in the first place.
