title: How do you know your consult service is doing a good job? Generating performance measures for C-L service effectiveness.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  There is no consensus in the literature on measures for evaluating the performance of general hospital Consultation-Liaison psychiatry services.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The purpose of this study was to investigate what indicators might be used to this end.
  
  
  METHODS
  We surveyed United States Psychosomatic Medicine fellowship directors (n = 53) about the use of performance measures for their psychiatric consultation services. Results of this survey led to the construction of a second survey, which was distributed to the representatives of services calling for psychiatric consultations at our hospital (n = 21); this survey sought to determine the importance of various performance parameters to overall consultee satisfaction.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Sixty-three percent of responding psychiatric consult services do not use any of the parameters identified in the literature as performance measures. Consultee satisfaction was endorsed as a valuable performance indicator by 67.7% of them, but no satisfaction rating instrument was identified. The internal survey of consultees identified 11 of 16 candidate parameters as important or very important to consultee satisfaction, of which "consultant understands the core situation and the core question being asked" received the highest rating.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Consultee satisfaction is perceived as a useful global measure of the effectiveness of a psychiatric consult service. We elicited parameters that can be used to create a measurement tool for consultee satisfaction with Consultation-Liaison services. The use of such a tool merits testing in a larger multicenter study.
authors.affiliation: MetroHealth Medical Center, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Cleveland, OH. Electronic address: Mxl555@case.edu.
authors.forename: Mallika
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lavakumar
authors.forename: Emily D
authors.initials: ED
authors.lastname: Gastelum
authors.forename: Emily J
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Gastelum
authors.forename: Filza
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Hussain
authors.forename: Jon
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Levenson
authors.forename: Ralph N
authors.initials: RN
authors.lastname: Wharton
authors.forename: Philip R
authors.initials: PR
authors.lastname: Muskin
authors.forename: Peter A
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Shapiro
mesh_terms: D003258:Consumer Behavior; D006801:Humans; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D010865:Pilot Projects; D011567:Psychiatric Department, Hospital / Q000592:standards*; D011611:Psychosomatic Medicine / Q000592:standards*; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care / Q000379:methods*; D012017:Referral and Consultation / Q000592:standards*