National Research Corporation (NRC), founded in 1981, is an organization dedicated to improving the quality of care provided in the healthcare industry.In 2001, NRC acquired the Picker Institute and its world-class family of surveys. The Picker Institute and Harvard researchers are well-known for their extensive research of the patient experience within the healthcare industry. In fact, after seven years of researching over 8,000 patients and family members, we determined what was most important to patients and determined how to measure those aspects. These major findings resulted in the Eight Dimensions of Patient-Centered Care and behavioral-based questions.While the industry's most common tools focus on issues that providers believe drive satisfaction, the Picker approach addresses performance from the patient's perspective. We understand that unless tools are designed to measure what matters most to patients and to provide data that can be used for effective improvement, the true value of an organization's research efforts can be lost – and the patient experience will ultimately not be improved.
