At the University of Michigan Medical School in 1990, the authors investigated the effects of faculty facilitators' levels of content expertise on the educational process and learning outcomes of small-group teaching sessions. The study was conducted in a microbiology course for second-year students in which four small-group sessions were used to replace 38 hours of lecture and laboratory time. The interactions between 11 expert and ten non-expert faculty facilitators and 156 students were observed and coded. The students' levels of knowledge and satisfaction were measured. The results indicate that, although significant differences in faculty-student interactions were not observed, the students in the 11 groups led by the content experts had higher levels of satisfaction and higher examination scores.

Whether patient satisfaction scores can act as a catalyst for improving health care is highly debated. Some argue that pursuing patient satisfaction is overemphasized and potentially at odds with providing good care because it leads providers to overtest and overtreat patients and to bend to unreasonable patient demands, all to improve their ratings. Others cite studies showing that high patient satisfaction scores correlate with improved health outcomes. Ideally, assessing patient satisfaction metrics will encourage empathy, communication, trust, and shared decision making in the health care delivery process. From the patient’s perspective, sharing such metrics motivates physicians to provide patient-centered care and meets their need for easily accessible information about their providers.In this article, the authors describe a seven-year initiative, which began in 2008, to change the culture of the University of Utah Health Care system to deliver a consistently exceptional patient experience. Five factors affected the health system’s ability to provide such care: (1) a lack of good decision-making processes, (2) a lack of accountability, (3) the wrong attitude, (4) a lack of patient focus, and (5) mission conflict. Working groups designed initiatives at all levels of the health system to address these issues. What began as a patient satisfaction initiative evolved into a model for physician engagement, values-based employment practices, enhanced professionalism and communication, reduced variability in performance, and improved alignment of the mission and vision across hospital and faculty group practice teams.