In just three years, Pekin Hospital (Pekin, IL) turned an accumulated $21 million loss into sustained profitability; cut employee turnover from 22% to 13%; and increased market share from 41% to 53%.

In the past 12 months, they've earned their highest patient satisfaction rankings ever, with inpatient, Emergency Department and home health rankings in the top 1% compared to hospitals nationwide (Press Ganey).

At Studer Group's June 2005 conference "What's Right in Health Care", Pekin leaders explained how they moved physician satisfaction from the 60th to 91st percentile (Press Ganey) since they started measuring in 2003. "The key was to focus on addressing the top two things impacting physician satisfaction," explains Rob Hancock, Director of Service Initiatives. "Then we measured our progress and reported back to physicians constantly."

So when Pekin's first physician satisfaction survey results put radiology issues and communication with nursing staff leaders at the top of the survey priority index, Pekin responded. By publicly reporting progress to physicians consistently, both items dropped off the top 10 issues listed on the priority index the following year. And Pekin moved physician satisfaction 30 percentile points in a single year.

To offer a quick snapshot of results, Pekin also shares two sets of dashboard indicators (JCAHO's core measures and inpatient satisfaction) at medical staff meetings and posts them in the physician lounge. Benchmarks are coded green, yellow, or red to show what's going well and what needs attention.

"We also keyed in on four or five patient satisfaction survey questions so physicians could see how their patients ranked them compared to other physicians nationwide," adds Hancock. "It was a revelation for them that patients rated them so much lower than their peers nationwide on things like friendliness, courtesy, spending enough time with them, or how concerned they were about patients' worries."

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Pekin Hospital's Results are Hardwired

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