Emergency medicine quality improvement is required to better serve patients. What metrics are used to assess and improve quality of care in modern Emergency Department? Leading expert in Emergency Medicine shares his view on how to improve quality of emergency medical services care.

Emergency medicine quality improvement. Patient's satisfaction with quality of medical care is very important. Video interview with top expert in Emergency Medicine. Patient experience during emergency visit matters a lot for compliance with prescribed treatment and overall well-being of the patient. Survey of patient satisfaction after emergency department has become a standard to assess quality of emergency medical care in the United States. Press Ganey surveys are very popular in hospitals and emergency departments across the US. Medical second opinion helps to make sure preliminary diagnosis is correct. Medical second opinion also helps to choose the best treatment for your medical condition before it becomes an emergency. Seek medical second opinion on your medical problem to avoid visit to Emergency Room later. Emergency medicine quality improvement. Dr. Anton Titov, MD. How is quality of Emergency Medicine Department services is measured? What are metrics of quality of patient care for the Emergency Medicine Department? Dr. Sam Shen, MD (Director, Stanford University Emergency Medicine): The trend in Emergency Medicine is similar to trends in patient care quality in other areas of medicine. It is the idea of patient satisfaction. Traditionally medicine has always been very paternalistic. The doctor will tell the patient what to do. the doctor expected that the patient will follow doctor's "orders". Quality of healthcare has always been pretty strong. But we are moving towards a new era in medicine. It is very important now that the patient is satisfied with his or her experience of interaction with the physician. Quality of medical care is more than picking the right medicine or choosing the right surgical operation. Quality of medical care is also about good communication between doctor and patient. How is the doctor's bedside manner? Was there a good connection between the physician and the patient? To measure quality of care many hospitals and private companies developed surveys. A very popular survey of patient's satisfaction with the healthcare they received is called Press Ganey. After returning from a hospital, patient receives the phone call or a written survey by mail. The survey asks the patient about the doctor, the nurse, the waiting room, the registration process in the hospital. Survey also asks about other important areas for patient satisfaction with the healthcare that they received. This surveys allow hospitals to measure whether doctors and other staff at the hospital are doing a good job. Survey allows to measure if doctors are responsive to the patient beyond just the pure clinical needs. We see this approach to be much more empowering experience for the patient. I believe this trend is here to stay. The government also gives penalties and bonuses based on the patient satisfaction scores for the hospital. Eventually this quality of patient experience assessment will also apply to the Emergency Medicine Department. It is a concept that patients have a voice in determining how their experience was at the hospital. Dr. Anton Titov, MD. This is a very important because ultimately medicine serves the patients. Doctors serve the patients. It is very important that the medical problem is solved by doctors. But it is also important how does the patient feel after being in the hospital and interactive with doctors and nurses. What are examples of questions that patient satisfaction surveys ask? Dr. Sam Shen, MD. Common questions that patient satisfaction surveys ask are: How good was the courtesy of the nurse? How good was the courtesy of the physician? What was patient's experience like in the waiting room? How was the interaction with the registration staff? These are some of the questions that survey asks the patients to understand how the overall experience from the beginning to the end of hospital stay. Dr. Anton Titov, MD. Do many hospitals in the US use such patient satisfaction surveys? Dr. Sam Shen, MD. That is correct. It is optional for hospitals to track patient satisfaction and patient experience while they stay in the hospital. But the majority of hospitals and Emergency Medicine departments use patient satisfaction measurement methods. Press Ganey survey is quite popular, but many hospitals are using some form of patient satisfaction and patient experience measures. Hospitals want to know how the patients are viewing their experience in the hospital. Dr. Anton Titov, MD. This is a very important trend. Hopefully measuring patient satisfaction during admission to the hospital and emergency department will make patients feel better. I hope it helps physicians to perform better service to patients. Dr. Sam Shen, MD. Yes. Emergency medicine quality improvement - how to measure? Video interview with top expert in Emergency Medicine. High service quality in emergency medicine.