Patient complaints can have a direct correlation with the quality of a surgeon’s performance, according to a recent study. The more patients have complained about a surgeon, the more that surgeon is likely to have increased surgical and medical complications.
Risk managers already knew that patient complaints are associated with risk of medical malpractice claims, but it was difficult to gauge whether those complaints reflected poor performance by the physician or a spoiled relationship with the patient.
William O. Cooper, MD, MPH, of Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, TN, and colleagues used data from seven academic medical centers and included patients who underwent inpatient or outpatient operations, and examined complaints provided to a patient reporting system for the patient’s surgeon in the 24 months preceding the date of the operation.
“Some patient complaints described behaviors that might intimidate or deter communication; others included patients’ observations of a physician’s disrespectful or rude interaction with other healthcare team members that might distract focus,” the team reported.
Among the 32,125 patients in the study, 3,501 (11%) experienced a complication, including 5.5% surgical and 7.5% medical. The researchers found that prior patient complaints for a surgeon were significantly associated with the risk of a patient experiencing any complication, any surgical complication, any medical complication, and being readmitted. The adjusted rate of complications was 14% higher for patients whose surgeon was in the highest quartile of patient complaints compared with patients whose surgeon was in the lowest quartile.
“If extrapolated to the entire United States, where 27 million surgical procedures are performed annually, failures to model respect, communicate effectively, and be available to patients could contribute to more than 350,000 additional complications and more than $3 billion in additional costs to the U.S. healthcare system each year,” the authors wrote. “Efforts to promote patient safety and address risk of malpractice claims should continue to focus on surgeons’ ability to communicate respectfully and effectively with patients and other medical professionals.”
An abstract of the study and a link to the full text is available online at: http://bit.ly/2lYMOvb.
Patient complaints can have a direct correlation with the quality of a surgeon’s performance, according to a recent study.
You have reached your article limit for the month. Subscribe now to access this article plus other member-only content.
- Award-winning Medical Content
- Latest Advances & Development in Medicine
- Unbiased Content