Patient Related Outcome Measures (May 2020)
The Use of the Net Promoter Score (NPS) in an Outpatient Allergy and Pulmonary Clinic: An Innovative Look into Using Tablet-Based Tool vs Traditional Survey Method
Abstract
Abdullah Alismail,1,2,* Brett Schaeffer,2,* Andrea Oh,1 Saba Hamiduzzaman,3 Noha Daher,4 Hae-Young Song,2 Brian Furukawa,3 Laren D Tan1– 3 1Department of Cardiopulmonary Sciences, School of Allied Health Professions, Loma Linda University, Loma Linda, CA, USA; 2Department of Medicine, School of Medicine, Loma Linda University, Loma Linda, CA, USA; 3Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care, Hyperbaric, Allergy and Sleep Medicine, Loma Linda University Health, Loma Linda, CA, USA; 4Department of Allied Health Studies, School of Allied Health Professions, Loma Linda University, Loma Linda, CA, USA*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Laren D TanDivision of Pulmonary, Critical Care, Hyperbaric, Allergy and Sleep Medicine, Loma Linda University Health, 11234 Anderson Street, Suite 6439, Loma Linda, CA 92354, USATel/Fax +1 909 558-8081Email [email protected]: Patient satisfaction has become an essential metric in addition to the type of care they receive. Phone calls, emails, and text to patients after their healthcare visit are the typical way of obtaining the data reflecting patient satisfaction. The purpose of this retrospective quality improvement study is to compare the traditional post-outpatient clinic survey method with an onsite concise two-question survey using a tablet method immediately after the patient visit using Net Promoter Score (NPS) questions.Methods: Data were collected retrospectively from February to August 2018 from an outpatient subspecialty clinic in southern California using an existing database from two different sources: the traditional method (TM) and the tablet-based tool (TBT), using NPS. The TM data were obtained from a third-party company using two questions via phone, email, and text collected 2– 4 weeks after the patient’s visit. The TBT has only two questions that were given to patients upon their visit check-out. These two questions assessed both provider and clinic’s performance using the NPS method.Results: In total, there were 1708 patients seen from February to August 2018. In the TM, the total outgoing messages during this period were 580 (34.0%) with 156 responses (27%). In the TBT, 648 out of 1708 (37.9%) surveys were collected with a 100% response rate. The NPS score showed that 99.2% of the providers were promoters. The NPS score for the clinic was 96% which reflects a promoter score.Conclusion: Our results indicate that when using the TBT immediately after their visit to the clinic, a higher response rate was noted. In addition, both methods had similar outcomes in terms of patient satisfaction NPS scores. Future prospective studies with a larger sample size are warranted to evaluate the effectiveness of the TBT tool in assessing patient satisfaction.Keywords: patient satisfaction, NPS, Net Promoter Score
