Measurement of patient satisfaction in anesthesiology continues to represent both a challenge and an opportunity. Challenges can include survey costs, lack of statistical and demographic validity, absence of uniform definitions, and uncertainty around the evolving link between patient satisfaction and payment. Yet multiple external forces increasingly are requiring anesthesiologists to define and measure their contributions toward patients’ perioperative experience. In response to these changes, the ASA Committee on Performance and Outcomes Measurement (CPOM) in 2018 convened a workgroup to revise and update its existing Patient Satisfaction in Anesthesiology white paper. This article is intended to summarize key points in the white paper, and ASA members wishing to read the paper in its entirety can access it at https://www.asahq.org/standards-and-guidelines/resources-from-asa-committees.
By 2013, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and other regulatory entities already had started to prioritize measurement of patient satisfaction in general as well as in the perioperative...