Satisfaction may not suffice! A commentary on 'A Patient's Perspective'

There are inherent limitations in using assessments of patient satisfaction to make inferences about the quality of medical care, Such evaluations tend to be subjective, subject to reporting biases, and difficult to interpret when they are being used to motivate and guide quality improvement efforts, Newer methods of eliciting both reports and ratings from consumers, such as the Consumer Assessment of Health Plans (CAHPS) project, can provide reliable, valid, interpretable, and actionable data about selected aspects of health care, The use of these methods and continued use of new qualitative methods, such as cognitive interviewing, should allow us to continue increasing the prominence of consumer-based information in quality assessment and improvement efforts.