Patient evaluation of the hotel function of hospitals

Background: A means of measuring patient satisfaction is essential in the e ffort to improve the quality of health care delivered in our nation's hospi tals. Accurate feedback allows employers to better meet patients' needs and allows hospital administrators to improve service delivery. Patients are e mpowered by having a voice in the manner in which their health care is deli vered. Moreover, improving the efficiency of the health care delivery syste m decreases health care costs. Hospital comparisons can be made readily ava ilable to a large audience through the Internet, resulting in empowerment o f the patient and a universal improvement in hospital care. This is the fir st multi-institutional analysis of patient satisfaction among New York City and northern New Jersey area tertiary care hospitals. In this study, we ev aluated the patient-assessed hotel function or hospitals in a single geogra phic region to determine whether clinically and statistically significant d ifferences would be revealed that could provide beneficial information to s takeholders in the healthcare system. Methods: Patients (n = 261) who had spent a night during the past year in o ne of eleven hospitals within 60 miles of New York City were chosen at rand om from doctors' waiting rooms. bn average, 24 patients from each hospital were surveyed. They were asked to complete a questionnaire that rated the v arious departments in the hospital on qualities such as courtesy, promptnes s, and cleanliness. The questionnaire also rated important characteristics of the patient experience, such as the ease of parking and the taste of the food. Each item on the survey was coded on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 bein g the most positive response. The 26 specific questions were divided into 1 4 domains. Averages in each domain were compared by gender, age, and hospit al identity, attractiveness, and setting. All statistical calculations were performed using SPSS/PC, and means were compared using t-tests. Results: Analysis designed to evaluate outcomes between each of the possibl e 54 pairs of hospitals comparisons revealed statistically significant diff erences as often as 44% of the time in some outcomes measures (logistics), but as rarely as 7% of the time in others (billing function). Clinically si gnificant differences (>2 units per scale) were frequently evident, althoug h the ranges differed dramatically depending on the domains surveyed. Altho ugh age, gender, and race/ethnicity were generally not predictive of satisf action, non-urban setting was correlated with greater patient satisfaction. Conclusion: By having access to patient satisfaction comparisons among hosp itals, patients are empowered to make better choices, employers can identif y and adapt to patient preferences, and administrators can improve the serv ices delivered and decrease health care costs by improving efficiency. Alth ough our study was somewhat limited by patient selection biases, the study' s results suggest that Internet-based tools of comparison will enable patie nts to make free and informed decisions about their health care by comparin g local hospitals and voting on their impressions of the facilities from wh ich they receive care.