Objectives There remains concern regarding the use of survey data to assess aspects of healthcare quality. The relationship between patient experience and adverse events as documented by patient safety indicators (PSIs) is a timely research topic. The objectives were to document the association of PSIs and patient experience scores, and to determine risk-adjusted odds of high experience scores versus PSI presence.

Setting and participants From April 2011 to March 2014, 25 098 patients completed a telephone survey following discharge from 93 inpatient hospitals in Alberta, Canada.

Research design A modified version of the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) instrument was used. Surveys were linked to inpatient records and PSI presence was documented using a validated algorithm.

Measures Three questions about overall hospital, physician and nurse ratings were scored on an 11-point Likert scale from 0 (worst) to 10 (best). Experience was classified as high (9 or 10) versus low (0–8). Demographic/clinical differences between respondents with/without a PSI were assessed. Logistic regression examined the relationship between factors including PSI and experience ratings.

Results Overall, physician and nurse care was rated high by 61.9%, 73.7% and 66.2% of respondents. 1085 patients (4.3%) had a documented PSI. Most frequent PSIs were haemorrhagic events (n=502; 2.0% of sample), events relating to obstetrics (n=373; 1.5%) and surgical-related events (n=248; 1.0%). Risk-adjusted models showed patients with PSIs had decreased odds of having high overall (OR=0.86; 95% CI 0.75 to 0.97), physician (OR=0.76; 95% CI 0.66 to 0.87) and nurse (OR=0.83; 95% CI 0.73 to 0.94) ratings.

Conclusions There is clear evidence that inpatient experience ratings are associated with PSIs, one element of quality of care. Future research, examining individual PSIs and patient experience questions, is warranted, as this may inform targeted quality improvement initiatives.