Introduction: Patient satisfaction has become a quality measure in hospitals across the United States. It has yet to be shown that patient satisfaction correlates with other patient outcome measures. Nonetheless, patient satisfaction is increasingly influencing modern neurosurgical practice. Currently, a small percentage of patients at our institution are randomly surveyed with the University HealthSystem Consortium (UHC) questionnaire at discharge. These results are compared to those from other hospitals across the United States. In order to improve our understanding of our neurosurgical patient population’s satisfaction needs, we created a more detailed survey to identify areas of needed improvement.

Methods: After IRB approval a detailed survey, adopted from the Swedish parental satisfaction survey, was distributed to all patients being discharged from the neurosurgical ward over a one-month period. Participation was voluntary. Data was collected in 6 categories including: information availability, patient accessibility, treatment received, caring perception, hospital environment, and overall satisfaction. Patients were evaluated by age, gender, surgery, and admission type.

Results: Over the study period, 71 patients completed the survey. Results demonstrated an improved overall satisfaction in those patients being admitted from clinic as compared to emergency room admits or hospital transfers. In addition, patients admitted on an emergent basis reported a lower satisfaction in regards to receiving information regarding test results.

Conclusions: Patients admitted on emergent basis have overall lower levels of satisfaction. We believe that the improved satisfaction among those patients admitted from the outpatient setting is the result of extensive discussions to establish patient expectations prior to admission. Emergent admissions represent a separate subpopulation of our patients, which will require additional strategies to improve patient satisfaction in the future.

Patient Care: Demonstrates a subpopulation of patients with reported lower satisfaction scores.

Learning Objectives: Patient satisfaction is a quality measure on which neurosurgeons and hospitals are now being graded

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