The use of simulated clients or “mystery clients” is a data collection approach in which a
study team member presents at a health care facility or outlet pretending to be a real …

The simulated client method (SCM) has been used for over 20 years to study health care
provider behavior in a first-hand way while minimizing observation bias. In developing …

Standardized patients (SPs), ie mystery shoppers for healthcare providers, are increasingly
used as a tool to measure quality of clinical care, particularly in low-and middle-income …

Background The simulated client (SC) method for evaluating health worker performance
utilizes surveyors who pose as patients to make surreptitious observations during …

Improving patients' experience in hospitals necessitates the improvement of service quality.
Using mystery patients as a tool for assessing and improving patients' experience is praised …

Background Assessing the quality of care provided by individual health practitioners is
critical to identifying possible risks to the health of the public. However, existing assessment …

Standardised patients (SPs)—also called patient actors, simulated patients or mystery
clients—have a long history in medical education in high-income countries. 1–5 They are …

The simulated patient method is becoming increasingly popular in health services research
to observe the behaviour of healthcare practitioners in a naturalistic setting. This method …

The use of standardised patients (SPs)—people recruited from the local community to
present the same case to multiple providers in a blinded fashion—is increasingly used to …

This paper reports on a programme of research in the UK aimed at examining the role of
mystery shopping in the measurement and management of service quality. The research …