New tool allows clinicians to better assess and understand patient satisfaction levels

Conducting research involving large amounts of information can be challenging. To address this issue, researchers created a spreadsheet tool to analyze large comment samples. The tool, called the HCP Review Comment Analysis Tool, is used to identify themes within patient comments and to measure thematic relationships with patient satisfaction.

The tool allows users to analyze up to 5,000 comments and gives providers without qualitative research skills or tools the ability to easily analyze patient comments and identify actionable measures of patient satisfaction. Measuring how comments reflect themes provides insights ranging from specific, addressable actions by healthcare practitioners to breakdowns of structural processes.

The authors assert that the tool can be used to measure other aspects of a comprehensive quality program beyond patient satisfaction.

The research was published in The Annals of Family Medicine.