Adapting a Standardized, Industry-Proven Tool to Measure Patients' Perceptions of Quality at the Point of Care in a PET/CT Center.

Patient satisfaction with health-care delivery is essential today. Using a psychometrically validated questionnaire-SERVPERF-we quantitatively measured patients' perceptions of the quality of service at the point of care in a PET/CT center, and we used this information to guide subsequent quality improvement interventions. SERVPERF is a survey instrument that measures performance for various services. It has demonstrated reliability and validity across various industries. The standard for measuring patient perception of quality in hospitals-the "Hospital Consumer Assessment of Health Care Providers and Systems" survey-does not include questions about the care received in a typical radiology department and is not performed at the point of care. Methods: 429 patients undergoing PET/CT examinations filled out an anonymous modified SERVPERF questionnaire on completion of imaging and reported their level of agreement with each of the 27 items by circling a Likert-type scale from 1 to 7. Each item was designed to elicit a response on the patient's perception of performance on a metric of quality. Data were summarized as the mean of each item. The frequency of low scores (≤3) was also calculated. Results: The items with the lowest mean score were "The department's physical facilities are visually appealing" (6.158) and "Documentation such as sign-in sheet, handouts, and brochures are visually appealing" (6.162). The item with the highest frequency of low scores (≤3) was, "The department provides services at the promised time" (11/429 responses). Conclusion: Our study showed that patient perception of quality in a diagnostic radiology department can be measured with a standardized survey at the point of care delivery and used to direct patient-centered quality improvement interventions.