Creating a Patient Complaint Capture and Resolution Process to Incorporate Best Practices for Patient-Centered Representation.

Background: A growing body of evidence suggests that patient (including family) feedback can provide compelling opportunities for developing risk management and quality improvement strategies, as well as improving customer satisfaction. The Patient Representative Department (PRD) at Stanford Health Care (SHC) (Stanford, California) created a streamlined patient complaint capture and resolution process to improve the capture of patient complaints and grievances from multiple parts of the organization and manage them in a centralized database.

Methods: In March 2008 the PRD rolled out a data management system for tracking patient complaints and generating reports to SHC leadership, and SHC needed to modify and address its data input procedures.