Patient Satisfaction

Patient satisfaction is a very important gauge of healthcare quality - since it measures patients' perceptions regarding the quality of the healthcare and services they receive. Middlesex Hospital measures patient satisfaction in all major areas, including inpatient, emergency departments, outpatient surgery, outpatient tests and treatments and behavioral health. The surveys ask for patients' ratings of all aspects of healthcare, including those related to physicians, nurses food services staff, housekeeping, admitting, discharge and billing services.

Middlesex Hospital utilizes nationally recognized patient satisfaction survey companies to collect results and compare them to other hospitals on a national basis. This allows us to measure our performance in this area against other healthcare organizations throughout the country.

Our patient satisfaction scores for 2007 were above the national average benchmark in inpatient and outpatient surgery, and outpatient tests and treatments. The Emergency Departments at the Middlesex Hospital Shoreline Medical Center and the Middlesex Hospital Marlborough Medical Center had results for the year, both in the top five percent of the national sample.

All clinical staff and departments review results of the patient satisfaction surveys in order to find ways to improve the level of patient satisfaction and make the entire healthcare experience a better one for our patients and their families at every level of service.

Changes in the patient satisfaction survey process were initiated in 2005. The hospital has contracted with a leading healthcare survey vendor, Press-Ganey. In addition to national comparisons, future publications of VITA will provide scores for Middlesex Hospital with comparisons to the other hospitals in the state.

Middlesex Hospital continues to train staff in the initiated a hospital-wide Service Excellence Program, entitled "Prescription for Excellence." This program seeks to enhance the Hospital's already established high level of patient service in order to exceed patients' expectations. Each and every employee of the hospital will receive personalized training as part of this program, in order to instill a consistent culture and mindset of superb customer service.

Patient Satisfaction Chart (FY 2007)

The mean score represents the mathematical mean (average) for all questions asked on the survey. The four areas surveyed are Inpatient, Outpatient Surgery ( two sites), and Outpatient Tests and Treatments (four sites). The table above shows the Middlesex Health System score compared to the National Database Mean Score in the specific service lines.