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9 Tips To Improve Patient Satisfaction

Some interesting points were raised at a recent Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM) session by Winthrop Whitcomb and Nancy Mihevc on patient satisfaction. To improve satisfaction scores:

1. Review the patient’s chart before you go in the room. It makes a big difference if the patient perceives you know what’s going on without having to bury your face in a chart.

2. Patients are often confused about who they are supposed to see after discharge. This, of course, is a safety issue as well as one that affects patient satisfaction.

3. Sit down when you are visiting a patient. Patients are happiest when they perceive you’ve spent enough time with them, and they are more likely to perceive this if you are sitting than standing with your hand on the doorknob. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at ACP Hospitalist*

Patients Are Happier When Doctors Sit

Patient satisfaction, as I wrote about previously, is being increasingly focused upon.

Doctors are often pressed for time, and appear rushed — which can potentially lead to unhappy patients.

I saw this small study showing that the simple act of sitting down while talking to patients can have a profound effect. Many doctors I know already do this, but now there’s some data to support sitting. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at KevinMD.com*

Do Satisfied Patients Mean Good Medical Care?

A version of this op-ed was published on March 15, 2010 in USA Today:

If you recently saw a doctor, you might subsequently receive a survey in the mail asking whether your physician was friendly, spent enough time with you, or showed the appropriate level of concern for your medical issues.

Read the rest of article here: Op-ed: Patient satisfaction doesn’t mean the best medical care

*This blog post was originally published at KevinMD.com*

Poll: Men Prefer A Sexy Nurse Over A Competent Doctor

From the Tonight Show and the Jay Leno News Service comes this morsel of information about doctors, nurses, patients and hospitals. According to Jay, a Men’s Health poll indicates that 65 percent of men would prefer a sexy nurse over a competent doctor. That’s shocking, but not surprising. I suppose it takes a lot of pressure off the doctors for a perfect hospital outcome. Unless, of course, the nurse happens to be ugly. 

I can see it now: In an effort to improve patient satisfaction and reduce malpractice risk, hospitals just need to fire the ugly nurses and keep the hot ones. In fact, as a hospitalist, my malpractice risk depends on it. Forget about all the other quality improvement junk we put ourselves through. I’d put my money on hot nurses any day.

*This blog post was originally published at The Happy Hospitalist*

Latest Interviews

IDEA Labs: Medical Students Take The Lead In Healthcare Innovation

It’s no secret that doctors are disappointed with the way that the U.S. healthcare system is evolving. Most feel helpless about improving their work conditions or solving technical problems in patient care. Fortunately one young medical student was undeterred by the mountain of disappointment carried by his senior clinician mentors…

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How To Be A Successful Patient: Young Doctors Offer Some Advice

I am proud to be a part of the American Resident Project an initiative that promotes the writing of medical students residents and new physicians as they explore ideas for transforming American health care delivery. I recently had the opportunity to interview three of the writing fellows about how to…

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Latest Book Reviews

Book Review: Is Empathy Learned By Faking It Till It’s Real?

I m often asked to do book reviews on my blog and I rarely agree to them. This is because it takes me a long time to read a book and then if I don t enjoy it I figure the author would rather me remain silent than publish my…

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The Spirit Of The Place: Samuel Shem’s New Book May Depress You

When I was in medical school I read Samuel Shem s House Of God as a right of passage. At the time I found it to be a cynical yet eerily accurate portrayal of the underbelly of academic medicine. I gained comfort from its gallows humor and it made me…

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Eat To Save Your Life: Another Half-True Diet Book

I am hesitant to review diet books because they are so often a tangled mess of fact and fiction. Teasing out their truth from falsehood is about as exhausting as delousing a long-haired elementary school student. However after being approached by the authors’ PR agency with the promise of a…

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