This article summarise, a personal view of the author (Paul D. Cleary dean of the Yale School of Public Health), on the available research, concerning measurement of “patient satisfaction” and “patient care experience”. Author argues that patient experiences measurement efforts are being devoted to providing high-quality patient-centered care. Some indicators and surveys are discussed in terms of their reliability, validity and correlation across individuals and settings with other quality indicators.

Special attention is paid to the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS), launched in 1995 by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). The CAHPS surveys are nowadays tailored to different care settings, so that results can be used to help identify aspects of care that can be targeted to improve patient experiences.

Some contrasting arguments are also discussed on the ability of patients to evaluate the quality of their care. Author proposes a review of currently used definitions of care quality and of the approach used in surveys that ask about care experiences.