health care, better informed about the benefits, risks, costs and alternatives for treatments, more technologically savvy, and more engaged in decision making with providers. As a result, hospitals will need strong IT infrastructure and tools to meet the increasing expectations of these more sophisticated consumers.

Patient satisfaction is a phenomenon determined by expectations and values. These values are important antecedents for patient satisfaction as we ask them to evaluate their care based on what they want and expect from health care providers. In general, patient satisfaction is an evaluative summary of whether a patient likes or dislikes health care services. Raftopoulos explained that patients evaluate care as functions of cognitive (beliefs, expectations and perceptions), affect (feelings) and behavioral intentions (aspirations and expected responses to care provided) [ 8]. This means that patient satisfaction is a dynamic process determined by the way a patient thinks, observes, and acts. Therefore, patient satisfaction is an attitude based on the way a patient conceives the phenomenon of a health care experience while in the hospital. Patients live in a world where IT and its associated services and benefits abound in almost every sector ranging from banking, entertainment, and communicating with friends and colleagues. It should not be surprising that many of these patients express greater satisfaction in hospitals that also employ IT in significant ways.

This study represents a simple first step to determine if there is merit in further assessing IT as an antecedent for patient satisfaction. The study is not without its limitations. For example, we do not know the level of IT investment in the hospitals included within the other category. There may well be additional explanatory variables that better explain these differences in patient satisfaction. For example, perhaps most wired hospitals inherently possess an innovative and radical culture that permeates all levels of care. Yet, the data in this study repeatedly pointed to instances where patients from the most wired hospitals were more satisfied even in those cases where demographic variables such as hospital size always seem to outweigh other impacts. Also worth noting is that even though there were variables with non-significant results in satisfaction ratings, there was not one single statistical test where the non-wired hospital patients expressed higher satisfaction than those in the most wired hospitals.

We were fortunate to have a large amount of standardized satisfaction data to explore for this study. The existence of a centralized data bank of validated satisfaction results through Press Ganey permits unique and innovative comparisons across hospitals. This study suggests IT may be an important antecedent for patient satisfaction. It is a first step that validates the need for

significant future study to better explain this potential. Future work needs to differentiate between the myriad of IT solutions to clarify if some play a more important role in leading to enhanced satisfaction.

Patient satisfaction has emerged as a vital indicator of the quality of medical care, as well as a significant determinant in decisions regarding future health providers. IT investment may well emerge as a strategy to better meet the needs of an evolving hospital patient demographic, ultimately resulting in a hospital’s ability to ensure its competitive position. ^c

 

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PAMELA WHITTEN ( [e-mail]) is a professor and associate dean in the Department of Telecommunication at Michigan State University in East Lansing, MI.

DEIRDRE MYLOD ( [e-mail]) is the vice president for public policy at Press Ganey Associates in South Bend, IN. GORAN GAVRAN ( [e-mail]) is a patient satisfaction data analyst at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, IL. HOWARD SYPHER ( [e-mail]) is a professor and head of the communication department at Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN.

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