How teams impact patient satisfaction: A review of the empirical literature

Background The increased use of health care teams merits further investigation in terms of their impact on patient satisfaction. Patient satisfaction and patient experience generally have come front-and-center given trends within the health care industry around "patient-centered care" and "consumer engagement." Purpose This review examines research published between 2000 and 2017 that includes analysis of potential team-patient satisfaction linkages, taking the conceptual perspective that both the mere presence of health care teams and specific team features like cohesion may each be impactful. Methods A systematic, PRISMA-guided literature review across four databases (PubMed, CINAHL, Business Source Complete, and ScienceDirect) to examine potential team-patient satisfaction linkages in the existing team literature was performed. Results In-depth review of 24 relevant studies found the following: (a) The extant literature examining the team-patient satisfaction relationship currently suffers from limitations around study design, construct definition, and variable operationalization, which render less confidence overall in the body of work, and (b) despite the limitations, extant work does suggest that there may be instances where the presence of a health care team does favorably impact patient satisfaction. Practice Implications Future research should attend to several issues related to study design improvements, more precise operationalization and measurement of both teams and patient satisfaction, expansion of focus beyond patient satisfaction within the same study, and inclusion of more ambulatory care delivery settings in team-satisfaction research.