Patient satisfaction with outpatient services reaches five-year high
- Filed under: Health News
- Date: Sep 29,2009
Press Ganey Annual Outpatient Pulse Report Shows Average Wait Time of 24 Minutes
Outpatient service facilities play an instrumental role in the nation’s health care system, and a recent report from Press Ganey illustrates how satisfied U.S. patients are with their treatment. Patient satisfaction with outpatient services has reached a five-year high, according to Press Ganey’s 2009 Outpatient Pulse Report: Patient Perspectives on American Health Care. This report analyzes patients’ satisfaction with outpatient facility care, including insight from 2.3 million patients treated at nearly 1,300 outpatient care facilities nationwide last year.
Outpatient care, which includes laboratory tests, therapy, diagnostic testing and other treatments, continued to meet or exceed patient expectations overall, despite the recession in 2008. Satisfaction has increased gradually every quarter since 2004, reaching a high score of 91.29 in October 2008. According to the report, patients were most satisfied with tests, treatment and the overall care in the outpatient setting, but were least satisfied by the facilities and registration processes.
A key element to high patient satisfaction with outpatient facilities is wait time. The average wait time for outpatient services in 2008 was 24 minutes — a 2 percent decrease versus 2007.
“Both hospital-based and freestanding outpatient centers have grown in number over the past few years, as has the level of competition, which further underscores the importance of achieving and maintaining high customer satisfaction levels,” said Dr. Deirdre Mylod, vice president of acute services at Press Ganey. “It is imperative for outpatient centers to capture and act upon patient satisfaction data in order to stay competitive and profitable.”
There are a number of notable findings in this year’s report:
– Patients between the ages of 65 and 79 report the highest levels of satisfaction, while patients between the ages of 18 and 34 are the least satisfied.
– Patients receiving care on Sundays have the lowest levels of satisfaction, as well as the highest average wait time.
– Patients receiving care in the morning report a higher satisfaction level.
Cancer patients receiving radiation treatments were the most satisfied outpatients in 2008, followed closely by cardiac rehabilitation patients. Press Ganey believes this finding is likely traced to the patients’ familiarity with caregivers during ongoing treatment.
Patient satisfaction with ambulatory surgery — generally non-emergent surgery that does not require a hospital stay — has increased overall since 2004.
The annual Outpatient Pulse Report also identified the top priorities for improvement in areas such as respect, sensitivity and teamwork of the outpatient care providers.
These research findings are part of a series of Press Ganey pulse reports and check-up reports which examine the status of health care quality across different care settings. Findings and observations highlight the progress of health care facilities during today’s challenging health care landscape and help guide improvements to the quality of health care in the U.S.
The 2009 Outpatient Pulse Report: Patient Perspectives on American Health Care is available at http://www.pressganey.com/OutpatientPulseReport09.pdf.
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