The increasing importance of patient surveys

BMJ 1999;319:720-721 ( 18 September )

Editorials

The increasing importance of patient surveys

Now that sound methods exist, patient surveys can facilitate improvement

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

People often think of "exit" and "voice" as the main ways patients can influence healthcare quality¹ $---$ that is, patientscan leave providers they are not happy with or they can voicetheir opinions in an attempt to change care. A common strategyfor eliciting patients' "voices" is to conduct surveys. Clinicianshave long been sceptical about such surveys, partly because theycommunicate regularly with their patients and saw no need foranother method of hearing their concerns and partly because satisfactionsurveys used to be flawed measures of healthcare quality. Now,however, that is beginning to change as rigorous methods havebeen applied to developing and evaluating patientsurveys.

Despite numerous studies of patient satisfaction,² they have not resulted in the quality improvement that many expected.Previous satisfaction surveys had little impact because they oftendid not meet minimal standards of conceptual or methodologicalrigour and were not designed to . . . [Full text of this article]

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