[Referrer satisfaction as a quality criterion: developing an questionnaire for measuring the quality of services provided by a radiology department].
OBJECTIVE
To develop a questionnaire for measuring referring physician satisfaction and to conduct a pilot study in which this questionnaire is given to all physicians referring patients to the authors' radiology department.


METHODS
After qualitative pre-testing and adjustment of the prototype questionnaire, data were collected using the finalized standardized questionnaire comprising 29 indicators rated on a 4-point ordinal scale mailed with a personalized cover letter to the total referring physician population of a radiology department (n = 727). The replies, rated 1 - 4, were entered into a data entry mask for statistical analysis.


RESULTS
The response rate was 33.8 %. The indicators with the highest satisfaction rating were the range of examinations offered ("very satisfied": 79.3 % mean 3.79), the quality of the technical equipment used for MRI and CT (79.3 %, 3.79) and mammography (82.5 %, 3.82), and the quality of the images yielded by these procedures (74.5 %, 3.73 and 82.2 %, 3.83). Dissatisfaction was relatively high with the indicators "time to receipt of the written report" (28.3 % "not very satisfied" or "not at all satisfied", mean 2.97), "time to receipt of the X-ray images" (18.2 %, 3.07) and "availability of previous findings" (20.9 %, 3.05); satisfaction was higher among external referring physicians (p < 0.05). Physicians rated the importance of these three indicators as relatively high ("very important": 62.4 %, 54.3 % and 49.6 %). Other indicators showing a similar level of dissatisfaction were "car parking availability" (24.1 %, 3.01), "patient waiting time" (27.4 %, 2.87) and "patient environment" (21.2 %, 2.99), although these factors were rated as less important ("very important": 33.0 %, 33.7 % and 40.4 %).


CONCLUSIONS
This questionnaire constitutes a standardized validated instrument for assessing referring physician satisfaction with a radiology department. The data from this pilot study highlight areas for potential improvement. Deployment of such a questionnaire in different radiology departments could serve to establish best practice benchmarks.
Kubik-Huch
R A
RA
Radiologisches Institut, Kantonsspital Baden, Schweiz. rahel.kubik@ksb.ch
Rexroth
M
M
Porst
R
R
Dürselen
L
L
Otto
R
R
Szucs
T
T
D003258:Consumer Behavior; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000592:standards; D008327:Mammography / Q000592:standards; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D010820:Physicians; D010865:Pilot Projects; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D011872:Radiology Department, Hospital / Q000592:standards*; D012017:Referral and Consultation; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed / Q000592:standards