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Study warns against overemphasizing patient satisfaction
NEWS IN BRIEF — Posted Feb. 20, 2012
Placing too much importance on patient satisfaction measures could lead to higher health care costs and poorer clinical outcomes as physicians seek to appease patients with more discretionary services, says an Archives of Internal Medicine study published online Feb. 13.
Researchers analyzed 2000 to 2007 Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality data on 51,946 adult patients. Patients who reported higher levels of satisfaction with their medical care were less likely to go to the emergency department. But those patients were more likely to be hospitalized, took more medications and had higher health expenditures compared with less-satisfied patients.
Because patient satisfaction is linked with discretionary care, overemphasizing patient satisfaction could have unintended adverse effects on utilization, expenditures and outcomes, the study said.
"While most Americans may accurately assess how well their washing machines, their hairdressers or even their airlines are performing, their evaluations of their physicians and health care interventions may have limited viability," Brenda E. Sirovich, MD, assistant professor of medicine at Dartmouth Medical School, said in a commentary on the study (link).
Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2012/02/20/prbf0220.htm.
