The impact of pharmacist-directed patient education and anticoagulant care coordination on patient satisfaction.

BACKGROUND

Patient satisfaction data played a role in determining Medicare reimbursement as of October 2012. Clinical pharmacy services could improve satisfaction of hospital inpatients but it is unclear whether this relates to performance on standardized hospital surveys.

OBJECTIVE

To describe the impact on patient satisfaction of patient education and follow-up care coordination provided by an inpatient pharmacist-directed anticoagulation service (PDAS).

METHODS

This study was conducted at an urban, tertiary care hospital. PDAS is a clinical pharmacy service that has improved transition-of-care, safety, and efficacy involving anticoagulation at our institution. Patients receiving inpatient anticoagulation during February 2001-April 2007 (pre-PDAS) and December 2008-December 2010 (post-PDAS), who responded to a mail-in survey, were included. Survey items included satisfaction ("How satisfied were you with the medical care?"), amount of information ("Was the amount of information you received about your medicine...?"), clarity of information ("Was the clarity of the information about your medicine...?"), answer quality ("Were the answers to your questions about your medicine...?"), and spoke to a pharmacist ("Did a pharmacist speak with you during your stay?"). Response options for amount of information, clarity of information, answer quality, and satisfaction used a symmetric 5-point Likert-type scale, with options 1-5 indicating most to least positive, respectively. Options 1-2 were considered positive and options 3-5 were considered negative. Primary analysis compared patient satisfaction (defined as rate of positive responses) between pre-PDAS and post-PDAS respondents. χ² test was used for all comparisons.

RESULTS

Surveys were distributed to 1694 patients after discharge, with 687 (40.6%) responding. Post-PDAS respondents had improved patient satisfaction for all positive response items, compared to pre-PDAS scores. Amount of information increased by 37.2%, clarity of information increased by 35.2%, answer quality increased by 29.5%, and satisfaction increased by 10.6% (p < 0.001 for all comparisons).

CONCLUSIONS

Hospitals deploying focused programs with systematic approaches to patient-pharmacist communication may positively impact patient satisfaction.