Improving satisfaction in patients receiving mental health care: a case study.

Patient satisfaction is increasingly becoming an important component of quality for behavioral health care systems. The following report describes Group Health Cooperative's Behavioral Health Services department experiences over a 5-year period in moving from uncertainty about the value of patient satisfaction and the ability to positively impact patient ratings to achieving a significant improvement in patient ratings of satisfaction with mental health care. In this process, the Behavioral Health Department developed a deeper understanding of patient requirements and improvement strategies which could impact these requirements. A description of the results achieved along with the role of quality improvement processes in understanding and improving patient satisfaction in mental health care is presented.