Guest article by Vikas Mittal
Healthcare is one of the fastest growing service sector in the U.S. and world economy. A vast majority of patients rely on getting healthcare services from their primary-care physician. Typically, physicians see their primary goal to be improve health outcomes for patients. The idea that there is a need to consider the full spectrum of overall satisfaction is something new to some healthcare providers who tend to be more clinically oriented.
From a patient’s perspective, both clinical outcomes, as well as satisfaction, with the care delivery process should affect healthcare. How might primary-care providers address these issues? This teaching note provides a satisfaction-based framework that can be used to address these issues.
What are the teaching objectives of this note?
This note accomplishes the following teaching objectives:
- Introduces the concept of patient-satisfaction-strategy-maps to students
- Summarizes evidence about the behavioral and clinical consequences of increased patient satisfaction
- Outlines the benefits of using a patient-satisfaction map
- Provides a theory-based model for measuring and understanding patient satisfaction
- Excerpts from a patient satisfaction survey are included
- Results from the survey are described in detail for students to understand the full approach
- Step-by-step guidance to understand the model and draw managerial conclusions
- The note helps the reader to answer four strategic questions
- What strategic areas have the highest importance weight in overall patient satisfaction?
- Within a specific strategic area, what attributes should be the focus of implementation and process improvement?
- What benefits accrue from overall patient satisfaction?
- What structural factors affect patient satisfaction?
Where can I find the teaching note?
- Students should individually download the teaching note (free) using the following SSRN link: http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2756196
What classes can benefit from the teaching note?
- The note assumes knowledge of statistical analysis including:
- Regression analysis
- Cross tabulations
- Calculating and comparing means
- The note may be used for:
- MBA
- MPH (Masters in Public Health)
- Marketing Research/ Marketing Analytics Master’s Program
- Elective courses in undergraduate business programs
- The note may be used for the following courses:
- Marketing Research
- Customer Analytics
- Healthcare Marketing
- Services Marketing
- Customer Satisfaction Management
- Consumer Behavior
How can you structure class discussion and assignments?
After reading the teaching note, several issues may be discussed:
- How can a physician use the satisfaction-map to prioritize key strategic areas?
- Understand the interplay of importance and performance using the IP charts
- Within each strategic area, how can the satisfaction-map help to identify specific action attributes?
- What is the interplay between different components of overall patient satisfaction?
- Should physicians focus on treating the patient, or should they focus on the peripheral aspects of care such as being polite, front-office management and so forth.
- What are some ethical issues and/or professional dilemmas that may arise?
- How, in your opinion, would the satisfaction-strategy map be different for healthcare areas such as:
- Emergency medicine
- Oncology care
- Assisted-living facility
- As documented in the note, there is research showing some association between patient satisfaction and health outcomes. How can this be used to make the larger case for improving patient satisfaction?
Vikas Mittal
Professor at the Jones Graduate School of Business, Rice University.
