About White Memorial

Physician Satisfaction and Loyalty

Physician satisfaction is an important indicator of our social responsibility because it helps us retain top talent in our community, which includes many medically underserved areas.

Starting at the end of 2006, we began conducting our physician satisfaction survey every quarter instead of every year in order to be able to gather and respond to feedback from our medical staff more quickly. We conduct this survey with the assistance of Professional Research Consultants (PRC), an independent third party.

Also in 2006, we started to look at physician satisfaction in terms of the percent of physicians who rate WMMC’s quality of care as “excellent.”¹ We then compare our score to 190 hospitals in the PRC database to get our percent “excellent” ranking. Our goal for 2007 is to have a higher number of “excellent” responses than 70 percent of participating hospitals.

In a recent survey, we found that consistent communication between the hospital’s senior management and physicians was a key factor in their satisfaction and loyalty. We have used this information to make improvements. For example, we are engaging medical staff leaders through our Physician Administrative Council, which meets regularly to share information and get physician input in making key hospital decisions. Also, we are using several communication tools to keep physicians better informed, including Medical Staff Report, a special newsletter by and for physicians practicing at WMMC.

In another recent physician survey, our medical staff indicated a need for more orthopedic surgeons in order to adequately serve our community’s needs. We responded by recruiting eight new orthopedic specialists in 2006.

Also, we know that having the right equipment and technology helps our physicians provide quality care to our patients. Last year, WMMC opened our specialty care tower, which houses a $25 million investment in new, state-of-the-art equipment and technology, including new vascular and cardiac catheterization labs, a 1.5T MRI, a 64-slice CT and digital radiography and mammography systems, as well as other improvements.

Spiritual Care

We also track how satisfied physicians are with WMMC’s commitment to mission and spiritual care. In response to the feedback, we have developed programs that help physicians meet the spiritual needs of their patients, as well as their own spiritual needs.

¹In the past, we used physicians’ rating of WMMC as “a place to practice medicine” as a measure of their satisfaction and loyalty. Starting in 2006, following industry standards, we shifted our focus to physicians’ perception of the quality of care at WMMC.