Background As part of the ISO 9001 certification process of our hospital’s centralised cytotoxic preparation unit, customer focus is essential for monitoring and continuously improving quality. An annual satisfaction survey was carried out among the physicians and nurses of our hospital (14 000 annual preparations) and the pharmacists of the five health institutions which subcontracted the preparation of their cytotoxic drugs to our unit (22 500 annual preparations).

Purpose To evaluate the adequacy of the satisfaction survey methodology for the annual monitoring of quality and customer satisfaction.

Material and methods Three separate questionnaires (physicians, nurses, pharmacists) were sent to the concerned staff to assess the past year. The items addressed were overall satisfaction, communication, overall circuit quality, clinical pharmacy activities, preparations’ quality, transport and delivery, billing and management of customer claims. For each item, a score or a rate of satisfaction was calculated and each centre’s specific problems were identified. A personalised report detailing the causes and remedial actions was then sent to each health institution.

Results Thirty-seven people participated to the survey (including 75% of the pharmacists surveyed and 47% of the physicians surveyed). The overall satisfaction grade was 17.4/20 and the satisfaction rates were: 99.5% (communication); 94.6% (circuit); 94.3% (clinical pharmacy); 98.3% (preparations); 89.5% (transport/delivery); 100% (billing) and 99.1% (customer claims). The remedial actions implemented in our hospital were the preparation in advance of standardised doses of rituximab to limit patients’ wait and the creation of several quality indicators, including the time between the demand and the delivery of a preparation. For the health institutions in subcontracts for their preparations, a quality indicator has been set up to monitor the conformity of the departure times of deliveries and the carrier company has been replaced for one of them.

Conclusion The methodology used (format of the questionnaires, items addressed, staff surveyed, rating modalities) allows the standardisation of answers and their exploitation. Repeated annually, this satisfaction survey will permit an objective comparison of the results and a follow-up of the evolution of quality and customer satisfaction.

No conflict of interest