Investigating the Relationship between Ambulatory and Hospital Patient Experience Scores in a Neurosurgery Practice

Patient experience is critically important on both clinical and business levels to healthcare organizations, medical groups, and physician practices. We sought to understand whether a relationship exists between patient satisfaction scores in different settings for medical providers who practice in multiple settings (such as in the ambulatory setting and the hospital) within a system. Press Ganey (PG) ambulatory and hospital-based patient satisfaction surveys of a neurosurgery practice were retrospectively compared. Questions and sections related to the care provider, likelihood to recommend, and overall experience were examined. The ambulatory dataset included 2270 surveys, and the hospital dataset included 376. Correlation analysis of hospital survey patients who also completed an ambulatory survey (N = 120) was conducted, and weak, yet statistically significant, negative correlations between hospital “Likelihood to Recommend” and ambulatory “Care Provider Overall” (r = −0.20421, p = 0.0279), “Likelihood to Recommend” (r = −0.19622, p = 0.0356), and “Survey Overall” (r = −0.28482, p = 0.0019) were found. Our analyses found weak, yet significant, negative correlations between ambulatory and hospital PG scores. This could suggest that patient perception established in ambulatory and clinic settings could translate to a patient’s perception of their hospital experience and subsequent satisfaction scores.