Patients are not always rational: the leadership challenge to improve patient satisfaction scores.

Health care managers today are faced with the awesome challenge not only of meeting patient and guest expectations in health care but also in achieving competitive patient satisfaction scores. With the move toward increased transparency in health care quality along with regular reporting patient satisfaction scores, health care managers must confront the many challenges and expectations of patients and guests. Health care managers also need to know that patients and guests are not always rational in their expectations and perceptions of health care services and therefore may report invalid and unreliable experiences in a patient satisfaction survey. This article addresses these challenges and provides recommendations for improving patient satisfaction.