Patient Satisfaction and Total Quality Management: An Analysis of Customer Feedback

Problem: Patient satisfaction is an area of renewed interest related to quality of care and total quality management (TQM). Some patient satisfaction surveys provide narrative comments as well as empirical data about quality of care. Though numerous studies report empirical data, only one study was found which examined narrative comments related to nursing care. Sample: This study retrospectively analyzed narrative comments from surveys at a large midwestern urban medical center. Patient surveys mailed to nearly all inpatients discharged yielded a 41% response rate. More than 50% of the returned surveys contained narrative comments, from which 600 were randomly selected. Methodology : Content analysis was performed. Comments were categorized according to the survey sections used for empirical analysis. Content analysis was repeated according to nine attributes of quality nursing care identified in the literature. Findings: More than 50% of the comments overall were related to nursing. Just over 50% of the nursing comments were positive. The attributes of nurse-patient interaction and personal qualities of the nurse received the greatest number of comments. Conclusions: Perceptions and expectations of patients related to quality of nursing care were identified. The nurse and nursing care were identified as key factors in patient satisfaction. Analysis according to the attribute framework provided useful information for improving the quality of care. Implications for Nursinq: Nurse administrators are challenged to integrate these qualitative findings into their decision-making database. Policies, procedures, standards, staff development programs and patient satisfaction activities should be amended based on consumer feedback. Nurses must capitalize on each nurse-patient interaction to improve the quality care.

Grantor dc:publisher

Drake University

Year dc:date.issued

1993

Author dc:creator

• Brown, Mary Jo

• Patient satisfaction--Evaluation
• Customer satisfaction--Evaluation
• Total quality management

Language dc:language.iso

en_US

Dc Identifier Other

1993 .B814

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:escholarshare.drake.edu:2092/367