title: How to improve patient satisfaction when patients are already satisfied: a continuous process-improvement approach.
abstract: The authors present a methodology that measures improvement in customer satisfaction scores when those scores are already high and the production process is slow and thus does not generate a large amount of useful data in any given time period. The authors used these techniques with data from a midsized rehabilitation institute affiliated with a regional, nonprofit medical center. Thus, this article functions as a case study, the findings of which may be applicable to a large number of other healthcare providers that share both the mission and challenges faced by this facility. The methodology focused on 2 factors: use of the unique characteristics of panel data to overcome the paucity of observations and a dynamic benchmarking approach to track process variability over time. By focusing on these factors, the authors identify some additional areas for process improvement despite the institute's past operational success.
authors.affiliation: North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND, USA.
authors.forename: Dan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Friesner
authors.forename: Donna
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Neufelder
authors.forename: Janet
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Raisor
authors.forename: Carl S
authors.initials: CS
authors.lastname: Bozman
mesh_terms: D019985:Benchmarking; D019538:Health Care Surveys / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D017060:Patient Satisfaction / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D017749:Total Quality Management