Sector: hospitals, rehabilitation & care

The patient survey that reaches the ward

The annual report from the agency says hospital B scores 3.9. It does not say which ward drags the score down. DataLion collects patient, referrer and relatives surveys and analyses them, per hospital, per department, per ward, with AI coding of the open comments.

Free to start · no credit card · hosted in Germany

Interactive DataLion dashboard with an NPS score, promoter and detractor split and filters

DataLion is a survey and analysis platform for hospitals, hospital groups and care providers: patients answer via a QR code on the discharge folder, referrers and relatives via invitation, and the results flow into a dashboard each department sees pre-filtered. AI codes open comments by topic and sentiment. Collection is anonymous, the DPIA documents for health surveys sit in the Trust Center, and hosting is in Germany.

  • 🇩🇪 Made in Munich
  • GDPR-compliant
  • DPA included
  • Hosted in Germany
  • 🌐 Interface in EN, DE, FR, ES, IT & NL

Trusted by research institutes, brands & insights teams

  • YouGov
  • Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland
  • SevenOne Media
  • Nielsen Sports
  • Spiegel Institut
  • Messe Berlin
  • Hartmann
  • 50+ interactive chart types
  • 20+ statistical methods
  • SPSS · Excel · CSV import without data loss
  • ISO 27001 certified data centers (Germany)

Where patient surveys break down in practice

  • The survey satisfies the quality-management duty and nothing else: one PDF per hospital, once a year, and "what does that look like on ward 4b?" costs a new quote from the agency.
  • The overall mean smooths over exactly the ward where the problem sits. Among 40 wards, one at 2.8 disappears in the average.
  • The open comments are the most useful part of the questionnaire and nobody reads them, because 6,000 comments a year do not get hand-coded.
  • Referrers and relatives, who decide admissions and reputation, are not surveyed at all, because every extra survey would be a new project with the agency.

A QR code on the discharge folder, an invitation to the practice

Every published survey has a public link with a downloadable QR code. It goes on the discharge folder, on the poster in the waiting area or in the closing email of a rehabilitation stay. Patients answer on their own phone, with no app and no login, and the questionnaire controls appear automatically in six languages.

You reach referrers and relatives differently: through DataLion's fieldwork module. Upload a contact list, send invitations and reminders in the hospital's layout and watch the delivery status. The answers still stay anonymous, because DataLion stores no IP address or contact details with any response and does not link it to the invitation list.

  • QR code as PNG straight from the share dialog
  • Invitations, reminders and opt-outs from the fieldwork module
  • No IP address and no contact details stored with a response
  • Questionnaire interface in DE, EN, FR, NL, IT and ES
Share dialog with a downloadable QR code, for the discharge folder or a poster

Hospital, department and ward become analysis dimensions

Append a parameter per ward to the survey link, for example ?site=north&ward=4b. The value is stored as its own variable with every response and is immediately available in the dashboard as a filter and comparison dimension. One QR code per ward, one shared dataset, and the ward question is answered without appearing in the questionnaire.

Access profiles give each chief physician and each head of nursing only their own pre-filtered slice. Group management compares every hospital side by side, with crosstabs and significance tests when the difference has to hold up. For small wards you set a minimum case count; below it nothing is shown.

  • One QR code per ward, one shared dataset
  • Access profiles with a hard-wired filter per department
  • Crosstabs and significance tests instead of gut feel
  • Minimum case counts protect small wards from inference
DataLion access profiles: dashboards pre-filtered per department

Health data needs more than a DPA

A patient survey processes health data under Article 9 GDPR, and your data protection officer will want to see the data protection impact assessment. DataLion's Trust Center holds the data processing agreement, the list of sub-processors, the records of processing activities and the DPIA documents for employee and health surveys, which you can extend with your own details. You sign the DPA electronically and keep it as an immutable PDF.

Collection is anonymous by design. Personal data only arises when you add a contact question with consent to the questionnaire, for example for a callback from complaints management. Hosting is in ISO 27001-certified data centres in Germany, and the AI features run by default through a German gateway that does not store requests.

  • DPA, sub-processors, records of processing and DPIA in the Trust Center
  • DPIA templates specifically for health and employee surveys
  • Anonymous answers, contact details only with a consent question
  • Hosted in Germany, AI gateway without retention
The DataLion Trust Center with tabs for DPA, sub-processors, records of processing, DPIA and signed DPAs

AI codes the open comments against your topic list

"What could we have done better?" is the question that helps ward managers most and gets analysed least. DataLion codes open answers by topic and sentiment using AI and writes both back into the dataset as new variables, real measures in the codebook. Give the AI your complaints catalogue as the topic list and it codes against exactly that scheme, so waves stay comparable.

Because topic and sentiment are ordinary variables, you can cross-tabulate them: which theme does surgery raise, which geriatrics, which only the south site? "Nobody reads this anyway" becomes a ranking per ward. The derived measures carry an "(AI-classified)" suffix, so the quality report always shows what came from the machine.

  • Three new variables per text question: topic, sentiment and sentiment score
  • Your own topic list, for example the hospital's complaints catalogue
  • Topic and sentiment cross-tabulate by ward and department
  • Derived measures labelled "(AI-classified)"
Open answers from a survey, coded by topic using AI and shown as a bar chart

From dashboard to quality report and chief physicians' meeting

One click turns any dashboard into an editable PowerPoint file in the hospital's layout, plus Excel tab books and PDF. The report for the quality meeting becomes an export, and the follow-up question from the room becomes a filter click. For the supervisory board or the operator you share a dashboard as a link that viewers open without an account.

Because the questionnaire is kept as a template, the next wave is built identically: same variables, direct comparison, with significance tests where you want them. And because the referrer, relatives and staff surveys run on the same platform, the end of the year gives you a picture of the hospital that shows all four perspectives side by side.

  • Editable PowerPoint in your own layout, Excel tab books, PDF
  • Share dashboards as a link, no account needed to view
  • Waves built identically and directly comparable
  • Patients, referrers, relatives and staff on one platform
DataLion reports: PowerPoint and Excel export from the dashboard

Five questionnaires for a hospital's survey calendar

  • Patient experience (PREM)

    The experience during treatment, not its medical outcome: information, involvement, respect, coordination. Short enough for discharge.

    View template →
  • Patient satisfaction

    The classic satisfaction survey: admission, medical and nursing care, accommodation, meals, discharge and recommendation.

    View template →
  • Referring physician survey

    The referring practices: reachability, discharge letter, discharge management, with importance and satisfaction separated so the gaps show.

    View template →
  • Care home relatives survey

    The families' view in residential care: care, information on changes, involvement in care planning, trust.

    View template →
  • Psychosocial risk assessment

    The mandatory German workplace survey for nursing and medical staff, analysable per ward, with a printable questionnaire PDF.

    View template →

Charts that fit

The analyses you actually need

DataLion ships over 40 chart types. For a patient survey, three of them carry the work, because they answer the question "where exactly?".

  • Crosstab with an in-cell heatmap in DataLion (demo data)

    heatmap

    Heatmap crosstab per ward

    Rating aspects against wards, every cell shaded by value. Among 40 wards the one at 2.8 disappears in the mean; in the heatmap it is the red cell the eye finds first.

  • Crosstab with significance markers: stars flag significant deviations per group (demo data)

    table

    Crosstab with significance markers

    Whether the south site really scores worse than the north site or the difference is chance at 60 responses is decided by the significance test, not by the chief physicians' meeting. The stars in the table say so up front.

  • Interactive DataLion dashboard with an NPS score, promoter and detractor split and filters

    nps

    Patient NPS with promoters and detractors

    Recommendation as a score with the three shares next to it, filterable by department. The detractor share per ward is the number complaints management looks at weekly.

See DataLion with your own data

Start free with your own raw data. Or book a personal demo of the path to a finished dashboard.

Top rated

4.5 out of 5 stars on G2 and OMR Reviews

What users say about DataLion

  • via G2
    Very professional company, attentive to the customer needs, provider of a great software and service.
    Generoso M. · CRM Analyst, Automotive
  • via G2
    The contacts at DataLion are very committed. If you have problems, you can count on help. DataLion reacts quickly to requests for new functions.
    Robert Q. · Managing Director
  • via G2
    User-friendliness, especially for market research topics. Structured backend with many customization options.
    Verified user · Market Research
  • via G2
    The embedding function allows us to generate insights of our data for our audience and customers by far less than half of the usual time needed before.
    Verified user · Leisure, Travel & Tourism
Read all 16 reviews on G2 →
We now work much more efficiently, giving us more time to take care of the derivations and insights from the data for the customers.
Jens Falkenau, Vice President of Market Research · Nielsen Sports
Read the case study →

The relevant features in detail

Guides for hospitals & care

Questions hospitals and care providers ask

Does a survey run on DataLion satisfy the German G-BA quality-management guideline?
The guideline requires patient surveys to be conducted and analysed as a quality-management instrument; it prescribes no tool. DataLion is a survey and analysis platform, not a certified QM system, and we make no claim that using it alone meets the requirement. What DataLion delivers is the collection and the per-ward analysis with a report; fitting that into your QM manual remains your job.
Many of our patients are older and prefer to answer on paper.
That is the norm in geriatrics and care. DataLion does not print or scan paper forms; the usual route is mixed: a QR code and short link on the discharge folder for everyone answering online, and the quality team enters the paper returns into the same dataset via Excel import. You carry the data-entry effort yourself; that is the part an agency takes off your hands.
Do we get a comparison with other hospitals?
No. DataLion ships no benchmark database; the big providers' reference values come from their customer base, and we do not have one. What you get is the comparison within your own group, across every hospital, department and wave. For many hospitals that is the comparison that triggers decisions; the external benchmark is the one that looks good in the report.
How do we protect small wards from inference about individual patients?
Two layers. DataLion stores no IP address or contact details with any response. And you set a minimum case count below which a ward is not shown. For very small units, set the parameter at department level rather than ward level.
Can we use validated instruments such as the WHO-5 or PHQ-4?
Yes, as templates with scoring built in. The scoring engine computes dimensions, total scores and cut-offs and can give respondents a personal result page, with separate interpretation texts for clinicians. The scores land as variables in the dataset and analyse like any other question.
What does it cost for a hospital group with five sites?
The Team plan from €350 per month covers a single hospital with several surveys. A group with separate access profiles per site, fieldwork for referrers and staff and Trust Center documents sits in the Enterprise plan from €1,400 per month. For comparison, an agency-run patient survey costs a similar amount per hospital and wave, once.

Analyse your next patient survey yourself

Create a workspace, start from the patient survey template and see on the test dataset what per-ward analysis looks like.