Patient Satisfaction

As part of our commitment to providing excellent healthcare and continuous improvement, Children's of Alabama, in partnership with NRC Picker, a research company with decades of commitment to creating a patient- and family-centered service environment, measures the perceptions and opinions of inpatients, outpatients, and emergency patients. The NRC Picker survey focuses on the patient and family experience factors outlined below. If your child has received services at Children's of Alabama and you receive a survey in the mail from NRC Picker, please take a few minutes to fill out the form and send it back in the postage-paid envelope. Your input helps make us better!

Partnership between Family and Clinicians
Parents typically want to be allowed to be part of the healthcare team, if they desire. They want their knowledge of their child to be used in care decisions. Many want to participate in caring for their child, or be made to feel welcome to stay with their child. Partnership has been shown, along with communication, to be a key driver of satisfaction with pediatric services.

Confidence and Trust
The pediatric survey includes a separate dimension to assess confidence and trust with all members of the healthcare team.

Information, Education, Communication to Parent
Information can serve to reduce anxiety. Parents want information about their child's clinical status, progress and prognosis. They want to feel comfortable asking staff about their child.

Information, Education, Communication to Child
Parents and guardians want hospital staff to talk with the pediatric patient about his or her condition, and the things that will happen to the child while in the hospital. It is important to parents that these things be explained in child-friendly terms.

Coordination of Care and Services
Proper coordination of care is important to parents, as they are concerned about their child's vulnerability. Particularly with regard to patient safety, patients get concerned when coordination appears lacking. Parents and guardians express concern about the following: Coordination of clinical care, ancillary and support services and coordination of front-line patient care staff and services.

Physical Comfort
Physical comfort has a tremendous impact on how patients experience their care. Parents are concerned about having their children be comfortable, particularly with appropriate pain management.

Continuity and Transition
Meeting patient needs for continuity requires care providers to offer detailed, understandable information regarding medications, physical
limitations, and dietary needs patients will experience after they leave the hospital. Source: NRC Picker