Patient survey results of physician quality are colored by attributes of the physical space in which they receive care, which might call into question the reliability of such feedback, according to research published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine.
Using Press Ganey satisfaction survey results from a 14-month period ending in August 2014, researchers reviewed patient feedback on visits with the same physicians in either an urban hospital emergency department or two affiliated suburban urgent care centers. They found that for patients receiving care in the urban ED setting, assessments of physician courtesy, ability to keep patients informed about treatments, ability to listen, acknowledgement of patient concerns and overall facility care returned lower satisfaction score than feedback of the same physicians when they practiced in the suburban urgent care centers.
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"Although these results are limited by small sample size, we found that physicians consistently received lower satisfaction ratings from ED patients than from urgent care patients," the authors concluded. "This challenges the validity of using satisfaction scores to compare providers in different practice settings."