The satisfaction survey that matters.

We are a culture infatuated by high achievement and tireless in our quest for satisfaction. We refuse to accept service that we deem substandard and, as a people, are quick to complain at being inconvenienced, made to wait, and at the first sign of being overlooked. Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness and customer satisfaction: those are our American ideals. Satisfaction is so important to us that we expend enormous amounts of time and energy measuring it. We devote enormous amounts of resources toward assessing and studying it. And we spend enormous sums of money on analyzing, quantifying, and communicating our level of it. We do this, by and large, through the ever-present, often aggravating, satisfaction survey. Satisfaction surveys are everywhere. They come at us by phone, fax, and Internet, via e-mail, snail mail, the US Postal Service, FedEx, and clipboard-toting people with the audacity to knock on our front doors or stop us in our tracks at the mall. Anywhere you go in America today, and anything you do in this great country, generates a satisfaction survey. Buy a new car, and you will get a call from customer service after you drive off the lot. Have a new roof put on your home, and you will get a follow-up questionnaire in the mail. Make any online purchase, and you will get a series of inquiries in your inbox: how did we do? How would you rate your experience? How can we improve? Will you recommend us to your friends? It is exhausting. But satisfaction is so important these days that I would bet that the majority of us have questionnaires in our very own practices designed to, among other things, gauge how our patients feel about us. I doubt physicians 50 years ago concerned themselves much with how their patients felt about them. But because of the prevalence of satisfaction surveys, and the willingness of Americans to take them, physicians and health care organizations have come to realize that the provision of exemplary medical care is now no longer enough. In fact, from the client point of view, excellent medical care is should provide. In today’s world, the focus of medicine has had to broaden considerably, and fully encompass, the patient experience. But how important is the patient experience, another way of saying patient satisfaction? Do we really need our patients to be satisfied, in whatever way they define it? Do we even want our patients to attempt to define their medical care in the nebulous and subjective terms that comprise satisfaction? There are some intuitive reasons for us to want our patients to be satisfied: reducing malpractice risks and costs because satisfied patients are less likely to sue their physicians and more likely to tolerate and forgive perceived care failures; reducing patient defection from our practices; and mitigating negative word of mouth because word of mouth is the key to attracting new patients and building a practice. Patient satisfaction also promotes better compliance with treatment plans and thus ultimately generates better outcomes because satisfied patients are typically less stressed, better able to understand treatment instructions, and able to form bonds with health care providers that encourage continuity of care. All of these things help our practices thrive, which in turn enables us to do what we set out to do when we chose a career in medicine: to take good care of our patients and enjoy a fulfilling career From the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Carolinas Medical Center, Eastover Obstetrics and Gynecology Associates, Charlotte, NC. Received Jan. 24, 2012; accepted Jan. 31, 2012. The author reports no conflict of interest. Presidential address presented at the 74th annual meeting of the South Atlantic Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Naples, FL, Jan. 15-18, 2012. Reprints: Jack A. Lucas, MD, Carolinas Medical Center, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Eastover Obstetrics and Gynecology Associates, 1025 Morehead Medical Dr., Suite 450, Charlotte, NC, 28204. jack.lucas@carolinashealthcare.org.