FierceHealthcare.com- If you’ve got it, flaunt it. That’s the message from fiercehealthcare on patient satisfaction scores. Instead of simply looking at 3^rdparty patient satisfaction measurement as a hurdle to cross for reimbursement, many organizations are using these scores as marketing tools. Hospitals in California, Minnesota, and elsewhere are posting HCAHPS data on Facebook, Twitter and their websites. The goal is to attract new patients
with the satisfaction of your current ones.

Our Take: This isn’t so much news as confirmation of a new business reality. Most patients are never going to visit a CMS website to compare quality or patient satisfaction scores across organizations. You can be sure, however, that if your rival organization has better scores, that organization will be posting them on billboards, tv spots, social media outlets and more.

It’s marketing-fueled transparency. And it comes with sharper point. It’s possible for all hospitals in a town to provide excellent care or to concurrently promote indistinguishable slogans like, ‘leading medicine on the cutting-edge of science-based research-led care.’ But HCAHPS scores allow for more clear comparisons. They come in percentiles. Your competitor can say, ‘This hospital is better than that one,’ on a billboard and provide a data point that wasn’t previously available. So now it’s improve your HCAHPS scores. Then keep improving them. Or else.

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Perfection doesn't really exist. For example, this town was created in Photoshop.

KevinMD – A couple weeks ago, author and blogger, Dave deBronkart discussed the uncertainty and frustration surrounding patient diagnosis, stating “People who want certainty – physicians or patients – are kidding themselves.  And if we expect docs to be perfect, it’s a setup for dysfunction”.  DeBronkart himself is a cancer survivor with a 50% chance of the cancer returning.  In this article, he discusses how so many things in science and medicine are rooted in uncertainty and suggests that is something patients and physicians alike should accept.  deBronkart then asks, “What do you do in the face of uncertainty? How many sources do you check before you decide to move forward?” and proposes the following:  “Science keeps pushing toward certainty, and disease doesn’t wait. Perhaps if we acknowledged the difficulty of diagnosis, and if more physicians were allowed and willing in our culture to express doubt, patient questions would be welcome and we could work more collaboratively.”  

Our take:  We all want our doctor to be perfect. We expect her to have the latest information at the ready. And for the most part, we don’t want to have to double-check her work. Yet the speed of research easily outpaces the ability of most doctors to keep up. Hundreds of new studies are published each month. And for anybody who is not a sub-sub-sub specialist, the breadth of this knowledge expansion far outstrips the time dedicated to continuing education. E-Dave is right. We need to acknowledge the difficulty of diagnosis, encourage providers to express doubt on the edges of their knowledge, and hop in with two feet to do our own homework where needed. And if you like this piece, check out e-Dave’s fascinating story right here on Engaging the Patient.

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KevinMD –

1.        Making decisions that cause patient harm that were easily avoidable

2.       Cancelling/rescheduling appointments too often

3.       Being unavailable when needed during routine business hours

4.       Drab and dreary office space

5.       Disrespectful staff

6.       Not being responsive to challenging questions

7.       Poor bedside manner

8.       Long wait times and no apology and/or rushing the patient once coming in

9.       Asking patients to choose what type of medication they want to take

10.   Not accepting lists of symptoms or timelines from patients

Our Take:  The days when patients simply accepted the paternalistic doctor-patient model are over. Well, almost. Much of the concerns listed above are about communicating respect. Patients want doctors who care about side-effects, care about patients’ schedules outside of healthcare, care about patients’ observations. Even the environmental aspects listed above are about respect.

And yet with bullet 9 there’s a twist. Patients don’t expect to be treated on equal medical footing. They still want their doctor to make choices or at least strong suggestions on their behalf.

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“The very abundance of information sources available about health– particularly on the Internet—may well be contributing to information overload, anxiety and confusion by some consumers”, says researcher Ha Tu.

Our Take:   Patients want timely, understandable information about their condition, their body, their outlook. The internet provides a wealth of information but little filtering. It asks the patient to figure out what is relevant, what is credible, what is rumor. While patients clearly need to be their own advocates, they also need help. There is a lot of room, and a voracious need for doctors to better direct patients to digital information that is concise, understandable and relevant to the patient’s specific issue.