News

Outcomes & Satisfaction 2017 – How Are Our Chiropractic Services?

  • August 7 2017
  • Michelle Carrington

Surrey Chiropractor Working With Patients Back

Effective Chiropractic Treatment

At Haslemere Chiropractic we are dedicated to making sure that our treatment is as effective as possible, and letting users of our service know how we are doing. We carry out an audit of the outcomes that all adult New Patients reported at the end of their course of treatment during each year.

This includes patients who completed their course of treatment, those who improved to the point where they completed their initial treatment programme and chose to come for maintenance care (approx 25%), those who ceased treatment (e.g. due to inadequate response, lack of finance, etc), and those who were referred back to their GP/other specialist (6.5%).

Sample:
All adult new patients who completed a course of treatment at Haslemere Chiropractic in 2016

Results:
64.5% of patients reported that they were more than 75% improved. In most cases we anticipate that a full recovery was made. However, we often discharge patients who are almost better, with the instruction to consult us again if their condition doesn’t fully resolve. The recorded outcome will be that reported at their last visit.

24% of patients reported a moderate improvement in their symptoms (30-75%). Although in some cases this might reflect a slightly disappointing outcome, very often it reflects our greatest success. Management of long term pain and disability is a very rewarding aspect of our work, often enabling patients to become more active, to enhance self management of their condition, and to reduce dependence on medication. For this category of patient, a moderate improvement can make significant difference to their quality of life.

10.5% showed minimal or no improvement, and 1% reported a worsening of their symptoms. Unfortunately some conditions do not respond to our treatment. Sometimes people use our treatment as a last attempt to avoid surgery when other treatments have already failed, and sometimes patients may have a condition that is already deteriorating before they consult us and we are unable to change that. It is therefore inevitable that there will always be a small percentage of non-improvers.

Please see the attached file for a more detailed version of our OUTCOMES REPORT 2016.

 

Receptionist With Client

Meeting Client Expectations

The Satisfaction of our clients is very important to us at Haslemere Chiropractic in our quest to provide you with the best quality experience at our clinic. At the beginning of every year we carry out a Satisfaction Survey by e-mailing everyone who attended the Clinic in the previous year to find out what they have to say about different aspects of our service including reception, treatment and our facilities.
Sample: All clients who attended the Clinic from 1 April 2016 – 31 March 2017

The questions were as follows:

How satisfied are you with our Reception Service?
96% were extremely satisfied and 4% moderately satisfied. Respondents were invited to leave additional comments and 26 people did so. These comments can be summarised as: Friendly/welcoming (12), helpful (13), efficient (5), professional (2) and polite (2). There was also appreciation of the receptionist’s help with toddlers, and for efficiency in “getting back quickly”.

How satisfied are you with the treatment that you have received?
94.5% were extremely satisfied with the treatment that they received, and 1.5% were moderately satisfied. Unfortunately 2 respondents said that they were only “slightly satisfied” with their treatment. In one case, this was because the patient had not found the treatment to be as effective as they had hoped – “Treatment was very friendly and professional but only slightly effective”. It is sadly true that we are not always able to help everyone, despite our best efforts. In the other case the respondent felt that our treatment was too expensive, they were kept waiting too long, and they didn’t like the chiropractor.

For the first time ever, we had one respondent state that they were “slightly dis-satisfied”. However, their accompanying comment,“I feel so much better and more able to move more freely … It has been so worthwhile”,
suggests that this may have been a typing error and that in fact they are not actually dis-satisfied at all! Respondents were invited to leave additional comments, and 16 people did so. These can be summarised as:
Effective/excellent/good quality (9), professional (8), friendly/polite/kind (5), good explanations & advice (2), range to treatments available (2), helpful (2), punctual (2), experienced (1), good problem solving (1), never feel rushed (1).

How satisfied are you with our facilities?
92% were extremely satisfied with our facilities, 7% moderately satisfied and 1% slightly satisfied. No-one was dis-satisfied. There were 8 additional comments expressing general appreciation of our facilities and services, in particular our on-site parking.

Identify 3 things that you most like about Haslemere Chiropractic Clinic.
This question was optional but all participants responded. Their answers were: Friendly staff (61%), effective treatment (58%), experienced chiropractors (40%), quality of care (40%), car parking (39%), treatment to suit the individual (24%), good availibility of appointments (15%), convenient appointments (19%), convenient location (17%), pleasant environment (12%).

Identify 3 things that you dislike about the Clinic, or suggestions for how we might do better.
This question was also optional but participants were encouraged to give us negative feedback. 30.5% of respondents skipped this question. Of those who did respond, nearly two thirds said there was nothing they disliked about Haslemere Chiropractic. Of those who did respond, by far the most prevalent response was that the decor was drab/dated, and several qualified this by saying it wasn’t a problem for them but were only providing feedback because they were asked to choose something! Some people are still finding it difficult to park, and we are aware that parking spaces can be tight. We increased the turning circle last year by moving our back fence as far as we could, and are currently looking at ways to provide a little extra space when turning into the driveway from the car park, but unfortunately our options are limited by the space available. We were very pleased that scores for availability of appointments have improved from last year’s survey.

Please see the attached file for a more detailed version of our SATISFACTION SURVEY REPORT 2017.

Tags: