Patient Satisfaction: Questions & Answers
Why do we measure patient satisfaction?
Methodist Medical Center is committed to providing the highest quality of care and patient satisfaction possible for our patients. Listening to our patients' feedback is our most valuable way to know where we are doing well and identify where we need to improve.
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How do we measure patient satisfaction?
Methodist Medical Center of Illinois uses an external company, Press Ganey Associates, to conduct a random sampling of our patients after their hospital stay/visit. Press Ganey is the health care industry's leading independent vendor of satisfaction measurement and improvement services. Press Ganey provides us results for our inpatient care, emergency department care, ambulatory care, outpatient tests/treatment care, medical practice office visits, and home health service visits. Our results are then benchmarked against other hospitals in the Press Ganey national database. Our hospital-specific scores - displayed here as a mean score for each service - allow us to gauge our current performance and then track improvement over time.
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What kinds of questions are included in the surveys?
Using a scale of 1 - 5, one representing very poor service to five representing very good, the patient satisfaction surveys ask patients to rate their satisfaction. Areas rated include the admission/registration process, facilities, food, interactions with nurses and physicians, discharge process, personal issues, overall assessment of the care provided, and other services. Patients choose a rating of very good, good, fair, poor and very poor. The ratings are converted to a score (very good = 100, good = 75, fair = 50, poor = 25, very poor = 0). The scores for all the questions are combined to calculate an average overall score for each patient. These overall scores are then combined to create a mean (average) score for each service at each hospital.
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Why have we decided to post our scores in the Methodist Quality Report?
Methodist Medical Center is now one of the few health care organizations nationally to post it's patient satisfaction scores online. We view this as a natural next step for our organization to be both transparent and accountable to the community we serve, much as we already are with the posting of our clinical quality/patient safety and financial results. Given the great importance our organization places on improving the patient experience at our hospital, we believe it is very important to share our results with those we serve.
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How are we displaying our scores?
The results for each service category are compared to the national average with performance rated as green (above U.S. average), yellow (equal to the U.S. average) and red (lower than the U.S. average). Like the rest of the interactive Methodist Quality Report, "pop-up" boxes provide more detail about the patient satisfaction indicators, why they're important, how the results were compiled, plans for improvement and other details.
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What if I have a question or comment about a recent experience at Methodist Medical Center, a Methodist Medical Group physician office, or Methodist MedPointe facility?
Methodist Medical Center cares about your comments. Let us know your thoughts and whether you would like to be contacted. We have a contact us form available on our web site. We will send your comments to the appropriate administration office for review and consideration. If you would like to contact someone directly, please call our Patient Advocate at 309-672-5529. You may also contact Customer Relations at 309-672-4934.
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What if I have a question about Press Ganey Associates?
Please visit the Press Ganey website: www.pressganey.com.
