Healthcare process and patient experience

This chapter provides hands-on guidance with respect to the development and implementation of surveys measuring patient experiences. However, keep in mind that this is only a first step in the quality cycle. The results of such a survey give you a ‘diagnosis’ of the quality of care from the patients’ perspective. It does not really tell you what you should do to improve patient experiences, however. To find effective remedies for negative experiences, often you will have to do additional research. You will learn: how to measure quality of care from the patient’s perspective (i.e. how to construct patient questionnaires or where to find pre-existing ones); how to interpret the findings in the context of the objective of your measurement (e.g. quality improvement, patient choice, pay-for-performance); how to take action based on the results