Outpatient eye surgery / patient satisfaction research: Pilot study shows deficits in practice management

08.06.2011 16:22

In order to optimize strategic marketing, it is essential for surgical ophthalmologists to improve the quality of their practice management. This requires both process-organizational measures and patient-oriented adaptations to information and communication.

initial situation

When analyzing patient satisfaction in connection with outpatient eye surgery (e.g. cataract, refractive surgery or eyelid cosmetic procedures), the focus is usually on the quality of the results. There are positive results for the strategic marketing of the implementing practices
Surgical work is very helpful, but how patients use the practice management service areas is also crucial for overall satisfaction and the resulting willingness to recommend others

– Practical effect
– Organization
– Support from staff
– Doctor contacts
– Information about examinations and operations
– Surgical care and
– Aftercare
evaluate. This is particularly true for operations whose costs are borne by patients themselves.

The design of the pilot study

A pilot study by the Institute for Business Analysis, Consulting and Strategy Development (IFABS) used a questionnaire to examine the satisfaction of 623 patients from 35 surgical ophthalmologists' practices. For the characteristics assigned to the individual performance areas, both their importance for the respondents and their satisfaction were recorded. This was supplemented – each separately for that
Surgery result and satisfaction with the above-mentioned performance areas - a determination of the resulting willingness to recommend and the respective overall satisfaction in the form of a school grade.

Results

Surgery results

The analysis result of the willingness to recommend for the success of the operation (87.5%, optimal: 100%) confirms the positive results from other studies. The satisfaction value and the answers to the open questions on the analysis form go in the same direction: for almost all patients, the expectations of the operation were met and a noticeable improvement in quality of life was achieved. The average satisfaction rating was 1.4.

Practice management

The willingness to recommend (46.2%, optimum: 100%) and satisfaction ratings for the practice management are significantly different. The average is also low
The satisfaction rating of 3.6 results, on the one hand, from an inadequate practice organization from the patient's perspective. The focus of criticism is poor telephone accessibility and the length of waiting times.

In the area of “doctor contacts”, the patients surveyed complained about disruptions in doctor’s discussions, what they considered to be too short contacts and too little participation in the decision-making process (“I could only say “yes” or “no”).

With regard to the information on examinations and operations, the focus of criticism is the comprehensibility of the explanations (“too many technical terms”) and the lack of options for querying. It is also stated that the additional information material provided usually only provides a superficial insight into the matter and does not contribute enough to clarifying questions.