Feedback in radiology: Essential tool for improving user experience and providing value-based care

Abstract

Measuring the value that radiology brings to patient care can be challenging. A positive patient experience is consistently associated with patient safety, clinical effectiveness, and outcome measures and is therefore a tool for measuring value-based care. Monitoring the experience of users of radiology services is an indispensable component of quality improvement programmes for radiology departments. The integration of comprehensive feedback mechanisms brings numerous benefits, including enhanced care, strengthened trust, and greater engagement with our stakeholders and service users. Feedback should be collected from a variety of stakeholders through a 360-degree approach, combining both systematically performed structured methods, such as formal surveys, and unstructured methods, such as informal and opportunistic information gathering during multidisciplinary rounds. To maximise the impact of feedback, it should be frequent and diverse, ensuring that all perspectives are considered. Leaders in radiology must prioritise embedding a culture of feedback within their institutions, recognising its crucial role in continuous improvement. It is essential to ensure that our departments consistently provide value to our most important stakeholders-the patients-but also to our referrers and trainees. In this article, we consider methods for collecting feedback and provide some of the key findings from the literature. By fostering an environment that values and acts upon feedback, we can achieve significant advancements in patient care and overall service quality in radiology. CRITICAL RELEVANCE STATEMENT: Regular feedback from patients, peers, radiographers, referrers, trainees and other users of imaging services is an essential tool for continuous quality improvement, patient safety and value-based care, enhancing trust and greater engagement with our stakeholders and service users. KEY POINTS: Feedback from patients and referrers, radiographers and radiology trainees, helps radiology departments to identify weaknesses and strengths, and should be fully incorporated into daily practice. Many methods are available for collecting user and stakeholder experience, and these should be implemented as a priority. Acting on stakeholder feedback can improve patient safety and patient experience ratings, leading to a culture of continuous improvement in value-based care.

Keywords: Feedback; Hospital management; Patients; Referrers; Value-based health care.