Abstract
When patient satisfaction dropped to the 40th percentile group at the East Jefferson General Hospital in Metairie, Louisiana, staff, physicians and administrators believed adding staff would restore the hospital's award-winning status. How many employees should be added to recover the hospital's historical high standard of service?
In partnership with a consulting firm, a system was implemented that measures and correlates patient satisfaction, quality, and cost in real time. The findings revealed that more staff does not necessarily equal higher patient satisfaction scores. Award-winning hospitals have achieved and sustained patient satisfaction scores above 90% without adding staff by keeping score with real-time data.