High Satisfaction: Thank You Survey Respondents!
| to pdf >>

Survey Ratings

In 2005, in its ninth year of publication, The Permanente Journal (TPJ) conducted its fourth reader survey and found continued high satisfaction. Of the 2166 respondents--60% physicians, 13% affiliated clinicians, and 27% nurses--48% rated TPJ "good" and 35% rated it "excellent," giving an overall good-to-excellent satisfaction of 83%. Additionally, 14% rated TPJ "average" or "fair," and 3% rated it "poor." The response rate from each Region was equivalent with slightly more specialists than primary care responding to the survey; 27% responding online. Sixty-six percent prefer TPJ in print, and 17% prefer both print copies and online access, where you can search the full contents of all TPJ issues to date and print selected articles.

Perceived Value

The areas of greatest perceived value of TPJ were: supporting the principles of Permanente Medicine, building organizational pride and image, and showcasing practices and programs from other Regions.

Success and Challenge

Our learnings from this survey indicate that our highest satisfied readership prefers the humanities and social science articles, as well as finding value in the clinical articles. Our least satisfied readers, a small percentage, prefer clinical content. Others stressed the importance of being indexed in the National Library of Medicine. To address this, we are embarking on an effort to improve the quality and number of clinical studies, review articles, and commentary. After nine years of focusing inward, we will also include more authors and experts external to KP to share their new knowledge and practices.

RNs

Two years ago, Health Plan contracted to distribute TPJ to nursing leadership and key clinical nurses to enhance clinical team collaboration through shared knowledge and to meet nurses' expressed need for Permanente evidence-based medicine. For nurse survey respondents, two areas stand out in high satisfaction levels: "Learning about KP clinical best practices and EBM" (86%) and "The journal supporting collaboration and teamwork between nurses and clinicians" (79%). This demonstrates TPJ's role in supporting KP's new partnership with Donald Berwick, MD's National Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) where there is a focus on building 21st Century Healthcare Teams. This is social science in medicine at work to improve the delivery of clinical care for patients.

A New Venture

With the publication of Soul of the Healer: The Art & Stories of The Permanente Journal: The First Seven Years, we have developed a book publishing capability--"The Permanente Press"--to offer this book for sale as a cost-neutral venture.

Due to brisk sales, Soul of the Healer has broken even and is now generating revenue to fund future books under consideration including: clinician-patient communication, Permanente history, clinical stories, and leadership.

In addition to many individual sales, bulk purchases of Soul of the Healer have been made by different Regions for: orientation of new physicians, for recruiting medical residents and physician applicants, for physician medical educators, for team leaders, and as gifts to honor distinguished physicians and "Art of Medicine" top contributors.