A good number of patients are contended with the care they receive when hospitalized but many are displeased by pain control and communication, according to research that appeared in the Oct. 30 issue of New England Journal of Medicine.  

Ashish K. Jha, M.D., of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston and colleagues looked at data gathered by the federal government in a survey of more than 2,000 patients at hospitals that receive Medicare payments. Respondents rated six areas on a scale of 0 to 10: drugs; communication with doctors, as well as with nurses; pain management; discharge information and nursing services quality.

Overall, whereas 63 percent of patients in the study rated care a 9 or 10 on a scale of zero to 10, and 26 percent of them rated it a 7 or 8, the findings showed. In most cases, they were contented with the care they received during a hospital stay, “but boy there is a lot of room for improvement," lead author Jha said.

Moreover, the results disclosed that in almost 80 percent of cases physicians had a good communication with their patients. But an estimated 25 percent of respondents in the survey said they were satisfied with nursing services or that the hospital rooms were always dirt free. Furthermore, about half of the respondents complained about the noisy rooms.

It is obvious that the performance of medical facilities is changeable and that “there are plentiful opportunities for improvement,” the authors of the study said.