Qe - Patient experience
Customer service feedback
To obtain feedback on patient perceptions of the quality of our hospital care, Life
Healthcare uses on-line electronic patient satisfaction measurement through Q-evaluator
devices; the net-promoter score – a customer loyalty measure adopted from international
customer loyalty measurement trends; quality comment cards handed to patients during
their hospital stay for written comments; post-discharge telephonic interviews and
patient focus groups; doctor satisfaction surveys, and internal customer (such as
pharmacy and engineering service) surveys.
| Measure |
Previous Year 2008 (Oct 07 – Sept 09) |
Actual YTD 2009 (Oct 08 – Sept 09) |
Target 09 |
| Patient/Customer satisfaction |
Q-evaluator overall customer satisfaction
(n = no of responses) |
97,19%
n = 1 217 140 |
97,83%
n =1 227 606 |
All hospitals over 95% |
Net promoter score
(n = hospitals not at 90%) |
91.3%
n = 17 |
93.9%
n = 3 |
All hospitals over 90% |
Written customer feedback cards - % positive
(n = no of cards) |
94,1%
n = 208 462 |
94,4%
n = 203 626 |
All hospitals over 90% |
Q-evaluator overall customer satisfaction scores
The Q-evaluator device, an electronic customer satisfaction system, was established
in 2003 across all acute care hospitals in our group. Questions covering 14 different
templates relevant to specific units are available in English, Afrikaans, Sotho,
Zulu and Xhosa. Questions are updated regularly in response to changing customer
expectations. The device also registers patient details allowing unit managers to
respond proactively to issues raised by patients while in hospital.
The overall customer satisfaction score based on the Q-evaluator questions over
the last 12 months (May 09 – Apr 10) was 98%. This score is based on 1 240 000 customer
responses per annum from patients admitted to Life hospitals. The overall achievement
for 2009 was 97,83% compared to 97,19 for 2008. This score is based on 1,2 million
responses per annum from patients admitted to Life hospitals and represents a response
rate per admission of just over two.
Net promoter score – measuring customer loyalty
The net promoter score is a critical customer loyalty measurement in our Qe scorecard.
Customer loyalty is measured by asking the key question, ‘Would you recommend our
hospital/organisation to a friend or colleague?’ Willingness to promote the hospital
to friends and family is regarded internationally as one of the strongest indicators
of loyalty and future growth. Organisations that garner world-class loyalty receive
net promoter scores of 75 percent or more.
When we set the goal for all hospitals to reach a net promoter score of 90 percent,
17 hospitals were below 90 percent. Only three of the 45 hospitals did not reach
the target by September 2009.
