In the long run, though, it is the use of patient satisfaction data to pursue mass customization that will move health care farther and faster in the direction of true service excellence. Organizations that can manage to keep an eye on this week's score card results while not losing sight of the ultimate expectations and needs of customers will be in the best position to survive and thrive.
One possible mechanism for promoting this dual focus would be to report patient satisfaction scores not only for patients overall but also separately for strata of patients defined by variables known to be correlated with satisfaction-for example, minority,