So, I saw my last quarter’s Press – Ganey report (patient satisfaction scores) and was a bit shocked. Apparently over the last year I have been in the top tier of all ER providers across the county (over the 95th percentile overall each quarter). Suddenly now, according to these folks, I am among the “worst” – and thus apparently the most uncaring, rude, and competent of all ER docs. I am in the 23rd percentile. Pretty much I have stopped caring, ignore their pain, don’t keep them informed, explain nothing, interrupt them, and make them wait forever. At least this is what you might garner by reading my score. However, upon further inspection, the reason is apparent. Of all the tons of patients I saw last quarter, only a a little more than dozen sent in questionnaires (a very low “n” statistically speaking). Of them ONE person gave me all “1″s out of five. Guess what that does to your average? Pulls it down like the north Atlantic pulled down the Titanic. So there you go. Piss off one person in hundreds and you are the world’s worst doctor. Luckily, my hospital does not just fire us for one bad quarter- still it shows how these reports can be flawed.
I bet it was that drug seeker I threw out…..
Clearly, doctor, you suck.
But, seriously, do hospitals’ administration actually use these scores to decide who to fire??
remember- it only takes a minute to fill out a lortab script for everyone on their way out the door!
Ha ha! Did you read my post yesterday? Exactly on topic! It makes no sense at all to individually rate docs on P-G when the sample size isn’t statistically valid. Unfortunately, statistical innumerancy is endemic in the medical management world.
I work for a med-ed company, and we have noticed a similar problem due to laziness on the parts of attendees at our meetings.
After each meeting we hold, we give out a brief questionnaire, that has 10 sections rated 1-5, a question that has a written answer, and a comments section.
At each meeting, more than one person will list all 1’s (the lowest score) and then leave comments like “Great meeting! Awesome speaker! I want to attend the next one!”.
Apparently, they just don’t read the LARGE BOLDED part at the top of the column where it tells you 1=worst, 5=best
We end up having to contact that person (if the meeting survey was not anonymous) and asking them to clarify by sending us an email so we can correct their scores.
Is there any way to figure out if this could also be the culprit? Poorly designed surveys can lead to horrible aggregate results….
Man, if I’d known that survey thing was so important to doctors last time I was in the hospital, I would’ve sent it in. Now I feel bad, and hope the very nice doctors had good scores that quarter without me…
I hate when we get our butts chewed for low Press Ganey scores because of this very thing. I just don’t think it is an accurate portrayal of our “customer service” (and by the way, I have a hard time as a nurse being told I am in the customer service industry. I dont buy it at all).
Husband opened the survey I got the other day. So, when I picked up my mail, all I see, in big letters is “Press-Ganey” and I’m like “aaaaaaaaaah!!” I forgot that they were sending it to me because I’m in my last trimester and in and out of the outpatient clinic for labs and ultrasounds.
I did fill it out and give the incredibly nice people who cared for me high marks.
I hate press gainey and all of the others. it kind of signifies what is wrong with medicine today, with the ‘patients’ being treated like ‘customers’. You are a PATIENT, not a CUSTOMER. being a patient is not a bad thing, it does not demean you and should not demoralize you, what it does is give you the mind-frame that you are there to seek the advice of the person in the facility with skill and training, ie, the doctor or medical provider. being a customer means that your expectations should be filled, and this is often unrealistic.
hate to say it, but almost cant wait for obamacare, so we wont have to deal with these shortsighted surveys. if you dont like it, go down the street to, wait, there will be nowhere else to go…
These are BS, along with those “rate a doc” sites.
Basically only people who are pissed will usually will spent the time to write in. Most people who are happy won’t.
This applies to all surveys for any product. Therefore, the results are skewed to the negative.
I agree…Press Ganey’s suck. My hospital I work at thinks that they are the best thing. I personally think they are the worst thing to go by on patient satisfaction.
My floor has a very high turn over for a smaller hospital. We probably have about 200-300 patients in a month on our floor and we only get maybe 7-10 surveys turned in. Sooo, we usually have crappy scores because like Dr. Grumpy states, only the pissed off people that you couldn’t make happy even if you gave them a million dollars send them in.
So, we get in trouble and basically told we suck and need to give better care based on just a handful of people’s opinion. I hate it.
I am the charge nurse on the floor and go around to all the patient and ask how they are doing and how there care is. About 99% of them are happy and say that they have been getting wonderful care…but administration doesn’t care about all the hard work and happy people we have…they only care about those dumb survey’s that only a handful of people turn in. They are clueless to the wonderful care we actually give. Maybe if they actually came and visited our floor and talked to the patients, maybe they would have a clue!
Sore topic for me..can ya tell?
Anyways, wonderful blog by the way. I love reading it and have it saved as one of my favs!
I used to toss the things, until medical bloggers explained their ridiculous impact — now I carefully fill the suckers out, and if I give anyone/anything a score below 4, I explain it in detail.
I also always sign my name — does that make any difference? No one has ever contacted me.
It’s ridiculous, for all the reasons stated, but mostly because of it’s meaninglessness, statistically.
Forget about Dr. Murray and medical murder. Press Ganey and JCAHO/The Joint Commission are killing people. They have no redeeming value, while Dr. Murray might.
I came across your blog because I’m currently in nursing school, and I just had to stop by and say something about this! There’s a company based here in Omaha, NE called professional research consultants. They do patient satisfaction surveys for hospitals all around the U.S. also but they only do them on the telephone. They are MUCH more reliable than press ganey because they only sumbit results when they have completed a certain amount of telephone surveys. Press Ganey is paid to send out x amount of surveys where PRC is paid to COMPLETE x amount, so it’s a much more accurate pool. Maybe you can talk to someone at your hospital about swithing to PRC next year or atleast letting them know there are other options. Just thought I’d let ya know =)
I have this problem at my hospital. Each department has to receive 80% or higher 5 ratings with 5 being “excellent”. Now the entire hospital already receives 4 or higher, with 4 being “good”. But that’s not good enough.
Our department (oncology) only receives 12 to 15 surveys each quarter. And we never receive the 80%, which gets us in trouble each time. I’ve looked at the statistics – it’s always just 1 person rating the clinic poorly. How in the hell are we to make 1 damned person happy? And why are we killing ourselves over a 12 to 15 sample size? I’ve brought this up in meetings, and idiot upper management refuses to understand the insignificant sample size and my suggestions for improving sample size. It’s like beating my head against a wall. Idiots.