Researchers: Racheli Magnezi¹

Background: A positive patient experience contributes to improvement in health measures, responsiveness, and decreased use of healthcare services. Surveys and questionnaires are used to assess the ability of healthcare organizations to provide a positive patient experience, although these require considerable investment in time and resources. This study presented an objective, innovative model for examining the maturity of a healthcare organization's processes to provide maximum patient experience and the relationship between process maturity and surveys of patients’ experiences.
Purpose of the study: A pilot, to compare the results of objective observation and subjective results of patient satisfaction and experience surveys.

Method: Quality engineers performed a test at 4 outpatient clinics. Each question in the Ministry of Health satisfaction survey was given a score based on their evaluation. Statistical analysis examined correlations between the Ministry of Health and survey scores using analysis of variance and regression analysis and presentation of a multivariate chart.

Findings: There was no significant relationship between the assessment score and the results of the Ministry of Health Satisfaction Survey. An increase in the CMMI score did not always indicate a corresponding increase in the Ministry of Health Satisfaction Survey score for the same department. The satisfaction score of the Ministry of Health survey increased.

Conclusions: We did not find an alternative to telephone surveys conducted by the Ministry of Health and objective surveys by experts. There is still room to consider which of the 2 surveys can provide more reliable and better information as an indication of the degree of patient-centered care.

Recommendations: Researchers recommend conducting surveys in real-time to capture patients’ feelings, as satisfaction surveys do not reflect the situation in real-time, but rather, a patient's experience after the fact.

Research end date: 10/2019