Abstract
Aim
The incidence of malignant melanoma has been increasing in the UK over the last decade. Effective melanoma management requires a multidisciplinary team (MDT) approach, often involving dermatologists, oncologists, radiologists, histopathologists, skin cancer nurse specialists and plastic surgeons. Patient waiting times at our melanoma MDT clinic at the St John’s Institute of Dermatology at Guy’s Hospital, London had anecdotally been reported as excessive, specifically for same-day ‘in-clinic referrals’ from dermatology to plastic surgery. We aimed to ascertain the reasons for the delay and implement changes to improve patient satisfaction in the clinic.
Method
A patient satisfaction questionnaire was devised, measuring satisfaction on a numerical scale of 1 (unsatisfied) to 5 (very satisfied) in addition to a clinic staff perception questionnaire on patient satisfaction. Lack of instruction from staff after the dermatology appointment was identified as the predominant factor contributing towards waiting delays to the plastic surgery clinic. This led us to highlight and educate the issue to all team members involved and create a system whereby patients re-reported to the administrative staff after their dermatology appointment to be re-entered into the system.
Results
As a result of this, the mean surgical patient satisfaction score, pre-intervention of 3.83, improved to 4.50 post-intervention. Similarly, mean scores from staff assessing perception of how well the clinic ran and patient waiting times also increased.
Conclusions
The introduction of a new patient in-clinic referral protocol and increased staff education of the issue has improved both patient and staff satisfaction within the clinic’s health care provision.
Surgical Patient Satisfaction as an Outcome of Nurses’ Caring Behaviors: A Descriptive and Correlational Study in Six European Countries
