When a leading patient satisfaction survey provider announced changes to its survey tool that reduced its value to radiology practices—particularly those that operated outpatient imaging centers—one member wondered if Strategic Radiology could develop a more relevant and useful tool.  Working together, Lisa Mead, RN, MS, CPHQ, executive director, SR PSO Quality and Safety, initiated a Quality Workgroup to develop the questions, and Dave Polmanteer, director of analytics and business intelligence, developed a survey tool that could be customized for each practice.

Two years later, the survey tool hit the 1 million patient encounters milestone, with six participating radiology groups mailing a total of 12 individually branded surveys. Practices immediately began to experience the benefits of using an in-house survey tool that:

• meets the needs of hospital-based as well as outpatient-focused radiology practices
• enables a user to add questions as new needs arise
• offers 24-hour turnaround on results
• provides individualized group dashboard
• reduces bias associated with live survey requests through an email delivery mechanism
• allows for customization with practice and imaging center branding
• provides an average 24% response rate
• reduces cost

The in-house survey tool also offers member practices the ability to benchmark against other groups by working within the SR quality infrastructure. Use has reached a critical mass within the organization that will enable Mead to identify quality improvement opportunities for participating practices.

“By benchmarking with like groups and those you have relationships with, Strategic Radiology quality operatives can pick up the phone or make a site visit to find out what the other practice did to improve a score,” Mead observes.

Other Opportunities

New opportunities that will be explored in 2018 include using the tool for referring physician satisfaction surveys.  “We already have the framework established for patient surveys, so it’s not a huge lift to utilize it for other types of survey automations,” says Polmanteer.

Mead adds that the same benefits that apply to the patient satisfaction surveys can be attained on the referring physician surveys. “The online links and the direct emailing really improves response rates,” she notes. “By applying the tool to referring physician satisfaction, we have the same opportunity to benchmark against other participating groups to identify best practices that all SR members can benefit from.”

A work in progress is the C-suite satisfaction survey for which the Quality workgroup has developed and recommended survey questions.

Meanwhile, in two short years, Strategic Radiology has sent 1.5 million initial and reminder survey emails for 1 million patient encounters with an average response rate of 24% for six participating practices, a testament to collaboration.