Patient Satisfaction: An Increasingly Important Measure of Quality

Excerpt

There has been an ongoing national effort to improve the quality of health care. In accordance with a popular model described by Donabedian,1 quality measures should address three areas for improvement: structural items (environment within which care is delivered), processes of care (professional activities associated with providing care), and outcomes (changes in the patient’s current and future health status as a result of care). Recently, some groups, including the National Quality Forum and the National Comprehensive Care Network, have been working to identify processes of care to help improve the quality of cancer care. As these quality measures in cancer care are identified, they likely will be added to the growing list of “pay for performance” process measures used by the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services and other payers. …