Improving Satisfaction in Patients Receiving Mental Health Care: A Case Study

Patient satisfaction is increasingly becoming an important component of quality for behavioral health care systems. The following
report describes Group Health Cooperative’s Behavioral Health Services department experiences over a 5-year period in moving
from uncertainty about the value of patient satisfaction and the ability to positively impact patient ratings to achieving
a significant improvement in patient ratings of satisfaction with mental health care. In this process, the Behavioral Health
Department developed a deeper understanding of patient requirements and improvement strategies which could impact these requirements.
A description of the results achieved along with the role of quality improvement processes in understanding and improving
patient satisfaction in mental health care is presented.