Sidhu M, Berg K, Endicott C, Santulli W, Salem D. The Patient Visits Program: A strategy to highlight patient satisfaction and refocus organizational culture. Joint Commission Journal on Quality Improvement. 2002 Nov;28(11):605-613.

This article describes a structured initiative pairing senior clinicians with non-clinician administrators to interview patients to proactively elicit feedback used in quality improvement and efforts to refocus organizational culture.

Ponte PR, Conlin G, Conway JB, et al. Making patient-centered care come alive: Achieving full integration of the patient's perspective. Journal of Nursing Administration. 2003 Feb;33(2):82-90.

In this article, the authors describe how patients and families have been integrated into the care delivery system by involving them in planning, decision making, and improvement processes at each level of the organization.

Hickey G, Kipping C. Exploring the concept of user involvement in mental health through a participation continuum. Journal of Clinical Nursing. 1998 Jan;7(1):83-88.

This paper identifies two approaches to patients’ involvement, each with implications for the extent to which patients can be involved in decisions about their care.

Crawford MJ, Rutter D, Manley C, Weaver T, Bhui K, Fulop N, et al. Systemic review of involving patients in the planning and development of health care. British Medical Journal. 2002;325(7375):1263.

The authors identify 46 articles and reports from 1966 to 2000 describing the effects of involving patients in the design of care. Most articles were case studies and described processes attributed to patient input and changes in organizational attitudes.

Greco M, Brownlea A, McGovern J, Cavanagh M. Consumers as educators: Implementation of patient feedback in general practice training. Health Communication. 2000;12(2):173-193.

This paper describes two patient feedback instruments used to elicit feedback on interpersonal skills that were trialed in a training program for general practitioners in Australia.

Reiley P, Pike A, Phipps M, et al. Learning from patients: A discharge planning improvement project. Joint Commission Journal on Quality Improvement. 1996 May;22(5):311-322.

The interventions developed in this project led to changes in the way clinicians practice: patient input and other involvement in their care was actively solicited within this hospital, and an annual patient satisfaction survey was developed and implemented.  After the interventions, only 6% of 1,179 randomly selected patients (versus 20% of the 100 patients first surveyed) indicated that they did not receive the information they needed to help themselves recover.

Garbutt J, Bose D, McCawley BA, Burroughs T, Medoff G. Soliciting patient complaints to improve performance. Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Safety. 2003;29(3):103-112.

This article describes a study at a tertiary care teaching hospital in which patient complaints on service quality were actively solicited from patients during a three-month period. Interviewers received 695 complaints compared with 12 complaints received via the hospital's existing formal reporting system. Complaints were used in the unit’s quality improvement efforts. Patient satisfaction scores remained unchanged during the study period.

Bower P, Roland M, Campbell J, Mead N. Settings standards based on patients’ views on access and continuity: Secondary analysis of data from the general practice assessment survey. British Medical Journal. 2003;326(7383):258

The authors describe an effort to establish national quality standards for access and continuity in the primary care setting. Survey results and quality assessment data were analyzed to determine that, in England, patients have an expectation of next day appointments, short waits in the waiting room, and high continuity of care.