Survey says...enough already
 

I work for a small (25 beds) hospital. Our admin. has gone survey NUTS.

-Patient satisfaction (ongoing w/ monthly and quarterly results compared against a "benchmark"),
-Internal customer satisfaction (anonymous, performed for each of 20 hospital departments, results in an exercise in character assassinations)
-Provider satisfaction (anonymous, similar assassinations),
-Employee satisfaction (anonymous)
-Leadership performance
on and on

On total, I think we are asked to complete 75-100/year. Most are so poorly worded, distributed and/or obtuse that I decline to fill them out (there is a special place in Hell for those bastards at zoomerang). Beyond the volume, the bigger issue is that the results are reported as a score...a number that cannot be argued. Somehow, a score makes anything legitimate here and so, must be accounted for!!

There must be a term for these phenomenons. Is anyone aware of a well-stated resource to help me productively express my frustrations with this stuff?

your administrator is trying to bulk up their resume

Yup.

Not correct.

They are trying to fall in line with all the cr@p the Feds are handing out. Payments will be tied to satisfaction (even if the patients don't like the message they have to be satisfied). At least 2 hours of my time every month is spent on it and is not remunerated.:eek:

Dude! Where are you located? I grew up in hospitals in Wisconsin. My dad was HR director for La Crosse Lutheran Hospital (before the Gunderson-Lutheran merger) and Boscobel Area Health Care. It's been a few years, but we probably know people in common. There aren't that many 25 bed hospitals around.

My wife works in a 86 bed hospital and says they are bombarded with surveys as well. Maybe not as many as you, but a lot.

Not just hospitals...I'm done with the "survey monkey" emails.

You need at least one department per bed. That's the problem. You're light on administration. :D:D:D

Well...it sounds like I have company in my experiences on this stuff.

For me, it's embarrassing to think the folks steering the ship really believe these surveys are valid and the results that come from them are rock solid and that "excellent" is the only response to be counted.

I can see patient satisfaction surveys as a legitimate effort...but there are LOTS of patients with unrealistic expectations. The prices they are charged doesn't help the matter at all (even though the majority of these same people aren't paying for their care or meds...another issue). Yet, as in elections, each "vote" is weighted equally. I think it would be a real eye-opener to have a narrative for each election vote. The narratives for most of these surveys is a real window into how far off base the internal and patient "votes" really can be.

For example, a patient response for why they didn't rate their outpatient surgery experience as "excellent": "I was asleep the whole time".

An internal customer response: "I don't work with them, but they seem ok."

Thanks for the opportunity to rant as it is maddening.

Being involved with adult education as an instructor, we have way too many surveys to do as well.
The people we teach are bombarded with SIR (Student Instructional Report) for many of the instructors in the program. They also are required to submit an exit survey on the quality of the facilities and instruction they have received.
Management has admitted that the results of the surveys could be skewed due to survey fatigue.

BTW it gets better for some of us. One of the modules to maintain board certification for IM is about pt satisfaction in your practice. "You're going to stop smoking, lose weight, and get your cholesterol under control (not using crystals or chelation)" & be satisfied.:rolleyes:

Surveys are a tool used by incompetent business majors who are trying to justify their existence and manage something they don't understand.

I have vendors who frequently send me customer satisfaction surveys.
I do not fill them out.
Some times they'll call and follow up, I tell them if they don't know if they're doing a good job or not then there's something wrong with their organization.
It's never from the salesperson I typically deal with, it's from some "leak in the payroll" in an office somewhere who tries to delegate his job to his customers.
I don't work for them. If I am unhappy with their service I will let them know.
If they don't fix it they lose my business. simple as that.

This is a federally mandated program. It is not internal. Right now I am listening to another 45 minutes of admin speak that will result in another 3 committees being formed to "optimize the patient experience". Patient nonresponders are considered to be negative feedback. All touchy feely BS but the feds.will change reimbursement rates for a given hospital - worth millions of $$. Oy

this

They are looking for any way possible to ding doctors and hospitals and not pay them or demand refunds. It does not matter much what you are doing, but how you document it and what the pt satisfaction survey results are apparently of vital importance.

How do hospitals normally measure their performance, patient care, medical outcomes, etc? I mean internal measures, not measurements required by the govt. I assume that the hospitals have some quantitative system to assess themselves.

Performance is measured 6 ways from Sunday by many, many different internal and external groups (groups that are making remarkable amounts of money pumping out "data"). The worst is an organization called the joint commission which is arbitrary law maker, judge, judge, jury and executioner for most hospitals and clinics (although there are other similarly irrational options).

In the end, I think Sammy nailed it...so many people holding so many meetings surveys that it becomes impossible to keep track of it all and if something meaningful is ever shown, it is swallowed up in the volumes of data and frustration that precedes and follows.