Saturday, September 8, 2007

1-800-How's my doctoring?

Am I doing my work well? Are my patients satisfied with the service I provide? I've been practicing urology for 15 years with no formal feedback on my performance. Like anyone, I appreciate a pat on the back or kind word for a job well done, but I'd also like to hear about the areas I can improve on.

My interest in surveying patients started with another project we have underway in my office. In our urology practice, my partners and I wanted to shorten our appointment waiting times. Click here to find out about our "Advanced Access" project. (The story starts at the bottom of the page.)

An important part of the Advanced Access project is getting feedback from our patients. We currently use the same survey that I'll be using here, but the results are pooled. That is, we don't record which physician got which responses. I want to measure my own personal results.

I also want to share my results and that's why I've started this blog. Once the first week's results are collected, I'll post a link to make them available to you.

Why share the results? I'll have more to say about this in future posts, but if you are familiar with RateMDs, you already have an idea of what the future holds for physicians regarding feedback on performance.

I'm a little nervous about how this is going to work. It's an experiment in openness and collaboration. I have no control over how my patients respond to the survey. If the results make me uncomfortable, my only recourse will be to decide not to share them. Let's see how brave I'll be.

It's also the first time I've used web-based software this extensively. The first week will be a test to see if everything works properly. If you have problems with the patient survey, please post a comment on this blog and I'll try to fix it.

Wish me luck!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I had a appointment with Dr. Visvanathan on Sept. 13, the appointment was on time, actually a few minutes before the scheduled time. I was very satisfied with the duration of the appointment and the information that Dr. Visvanathan provided. I tried to post the online survey but must have been to late for the week of Sept. 10-14. Thanks.
Happy Patient.