Clinical research studyThe relation of patient satisfaction with complaints against physicians and malpractice lawsuits
Section snippets
Methods
The study was conducted at The Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Mass, because the hospital administers a standardized satisfaction survey to recently discharged patients (January 1, 2001, to March 31, 2003), documents unsolicited complaints from patients (January 1, 2000, to March 31, 2003), has a risk management program that assesses the potential for legal actions (January 1, 1983, to March 31, 2003), and has a reliable means of identifying physicians and their patients. Because
Physician cohort
Between January 1, 2001, and March 31, 2003, 56 746 satisfaction surveys were sent to recently discharged patients. The postal service returned 896 surveys that were deemed undeliverable, leaving 55 850 possible respondents. The hospital received 21 076 responses (38% response rate) corresponding to patients discharged by 708 attending physicians. The study cohort consisted of the 353 physicians with 10 or more surveys (18 995 responses).
The characteristics of the physicians and their sample of
Discussion
A small number of physicians generate a disproportionate share of complaints from patients and of malpractice lawsuits. Our results demonstrate that physicians who received low patient satisfaction ratings were more likely to have complaints from patients and malpractice lawsuits than those with high ratings. Physicians with high rates of complaints from patients were also more likely to have malpractice lawsuits than were physicians with low rates. Measures of patient satisfaction appear to
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This project was supported by a research grant from the Harvard Risk Management Foundation. Dr. Stelfox was supported by a Postdoctoral Fellowship award from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, a Walker Fellowship from Harvard Medical School, and the Clinician-Scientist Program of the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto. Funding sources had no role in the design, conduct, or reporting of this study.