HOSPITALS, PRACTICE ADMINISTRATORS AND CLINICIANS: YOU GOTTA LEARN TO LOVE PATIENT RATINGS

By Jessie Gruman

April 2, 2014

You are increasingly being held accountable for the outcomes of the health care you deliver. Pay for performance; shared savings in ACOs; public report cards‘the list of strategies to monitor and measure the effects of your efforts is lengthening. Many of you seem dismayed by the increased weight accorded to the patient experience of care ratings embedded in most of these programs.’  Here’s why you should embrace them: The care you deliver cannot improve our health outcomes or even maintain passable ones without the knowledgeable, active participation of us patients and our families.

If we don’t connect with at least one trusted clinician, show up when we need to, get the tests we agree on, use effectively the drugs and devices you recommend, carefully follow directions after a hospital stay and try our damndest to lose the weight and walk around the block more often, medical interventions are squandered. Our suffering continues. Time and money are wasted: yours and ours.

Read the rest of this post at Health Affairs Blog.

Original blog post by Jessie Gruman. Updated by the GW Cancer Institute June 2016.