A Missed Opportunity to Improve Patient Satisfaction? Patient Perceptions of Inpatient Communication With Their Primary Care Physician

Abstract

Improving patient satisfaction is a major focus of hospitals. Patient satisfaction could be driven by patient perception of hospital team communication with their primary care physician (PCP). A retrospective mixed methods approach was used to characterize the relationship between patient satisfaction and patient perception of hospital team-PCP communication. Data were obtained through general medicine inpatient and postdischarge interviews, oversampling "vulnerable elders," and a faxed PCP survey. Among 1044 patients and their PCPs, 22.3% of PCPs were not aware of their patient's hospitalization. Among PCPs who reported that communication did not occur, half (49.2%) of their patients thought communication had occurred, implying a lack of patient awareness of discontinuity of care and possibly impeding safety. Patients who perceived that communication occurred were more satisfied with care (70.0% vs 53.1%, P < .001). Therefore, hospitals could potentially improve patient safety and satisfaction by seizing a missed opportunity to improve patient awareness of communication.

Keywords: care transitions; hospitalist-PCP communication; patient safety; patient satisfaction.