Association Between Patient Satisfaction and Outcomes in Kidney Transplant

This was a cross-sectional cohort study analyzing aggregate publicly reported data integrated from 2 primary sources and included all US accredited kidney transplant programs that report data within the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients and Hospital Compare; 188 kidney transplant programs, representing 15 710 transplants were included in this study. In general, the scores for patient satisfaction questions were higher for higher-performing transplant programs; 5 questions reached statistically significant associations (P < .05). A composite of these 5 questions demonstrated a strong association with a center's performance indices for both 1-month and 1-year graft and patient outcomes (69% vs 40%, P < .001, and 60% vs 44%, P = .035, respectively), which remained significant after controlling for baseline demographics. The results demonstrate that there is a positive and statistically significant correlation between a patient's perceived quality of care, as measured by HCAHPS data, and quantified clinical outcomes for graft loss and patient death in kidney transplant recipients.