title: Patients' perceptions of office medical practice: judging quality through the patients' eyes.
abstract: With increasing pressure to measure quality, patient-based assessments of medical care are becoming increasingly important. Patients offer a unique perspective for evaluating the nontechnical aspects of medical care. This study reviews the importance of utilizing patients' perceptions to measure quality of care in office settings. It also reviews the principles required to conduct a well done survey. The concept of patient perceptions differs from the more commonly measured concept of patient satisfaction, in that perceptions measure whether a patients' needs and expectations are met, in addition to satisfaction. One of the most accurate and efficient means of measuring patients' perceptions is through the use of surveys. As with all standardized data collection, creating and performing high quality surveys of patients' perceptions can be challenging. Valid and reliable patient survey data can enable practitioners to identify areas for improvement, and demonstrate to external reviewers the quality of care they provide to their patients.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, Jefferson Medical College, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, PA 19107, USA.
authors.forename: K R
authors.initials: KR
authors.lastname: Epstein
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Laine
authors.forename: N J
authors.initials: NJ
authors.lastname: Farber
authors.forename: E C
authors.initials: EC
authors.lastname: Nelson
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Davidoff
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D009819:Office Visits; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D011216:Practice Management, Medical / Q000592:standards*; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014481:United States