Key patient characteristics influencing customer satisfaction in community health centers

It is cognitively congruent to assume that certain customer situations provide varied forums of reference that influence customer response on satisfaction surveys. This study evaluated the relationship of certain customer situations to responses on satisfaction surveys in Community Health Centers. The evaluation included a review of Community Health Centers and their need to monitor and understand customer satisfaction, a survey of literature on factors reported to influence satisfaction in health care settings, development of a model to test a standardized Community Health Center patient satisfaction survey database with a national multi-lingual scope, analytical model results, and discussion.; Customer satisfaction responses to fifteen standardized questions were found to cluster around those clinic operations that deal with clinical care, and those clinic operations that deal with clinical process. Three key patient characteristics were found to influence customer satisfaction with clinical care and clinical processes in Community Health Centers. The three characteristics were, gender, race/ethnicity and education level. These three are the key patient characteristics that influence customer satisfaction in Community Health Centers.; Competition for customers, accreditation performance, and participation with certain payers are often influenced by customer satisfaction surveys. Understanding the role of the three key patient characteristics will help Community Health Centers better define and compare satisfaction performance. Understanding this study will help Health Centers make more efficient use of limited resources, and consequently better improve the health of their communities. Additional evaluation could further benefit that cause.