We get questions all the time about patient satisfaction surveys and whether or not they’re worth the effort and money.

Are they completely valid?

Of course not. But, they can help identify certain trends within your practice; and for that they can be a useful tool to assess where your office’s strengths and weaknesses are.

If you’re going to have a patient satisfaction survey, we suggest putting them online. Here’s why:

Ease of Access

 

If your survey is online, it’s easier for both you and your patients to find and use the survey to its fullest potential (plus you’ll save a few trees in the process).

For you, housing your survey online saves you from having to hand one out to every patient that walks through the door, and it allows you to keep all the results in one convenient place without cluttering up your office or potentially losing forms.

For your patient, housing your survey online allows them to fill it out at their leisure without the thought of someone literally standing over them watching what they write. Ideally, it will also allow them to be more honest with their answers because the results are submitted from miles away in the comfort and seclusion of their own home (or wi-fi hotspot of choice).

Easier to Pull Data

In addition to accessing the surveys easier, it’s also easier to pull and use data from them when hosted online.

Do you want to see results and identify trends in your office?

No problem, the results are already in a handy spreadsheet.

Need to pull up a certain response?

Done, just search for it.

With online surveys, you save the time consuming step of having to manually input data. You also completely erase the risk of human error when entering data or trying to read someone’s handwriting.

Easy Way to Ask for Patient Testimonials

Would you like a few new glowing testimonials to put up on your practice’s website?

Create a comment box on your survey for patient’s to submit testimonials when they feel so inclined. Then, all you have to do is copy the text over to your site and, just like that, you’re done. This, again, eliminates a step and potential for human error.

Creating a Survey

So, are you ready to put your patient satisfaction surveys online?

We thought so. There are plenty of free survey services out there, but our favorite is the “Forms” tool found in Google Drive. All you need to create a survey is a Google account and about 15 minutes.

Here’s a quick step-by-step guide on how to create a quality survey with Drive in just a few minutes:

• Sign into www.Google.com/Drive with your Google account.
• Click on the red “Create” button and choose “Form” from the drop down menu.
• Choose a title and template for your survey.
• Begin adding questions and response choices to your form. Drive offers the ability to add everything from open comment boxes to multiple choice questions and even numbered rating scales.
• When you’re satisfied with the questions listed, click “Send Form” from the top right of the page.
• You can now email the form or copy the embed code and put it right on your website.
• Drive will store all responses in a Google Spreadsheet you can access from anywhere when you’re logged into your Google account.

As stated above, we recognize that patient surveys are inherently flawed to an extent, but their value when it comes to determining trends within your office can’t be understated. With that said, isn’t it about time you set one up on your website?