Search results

The purpose of this study is to understand that how different demographic variables and repeated availing of service from the same doctor or same hospital shape the overall perception of health-care service quality and satisfaction among inpatients admitted in private hospitals in an emerging economy.

A self-administered, cross-sectional survey of inpatients using a questionnaire was translated into Hindi and Gujarati. The data were collected from 702 inpatients from 18 private clinics located in three selected cities from Western India.

The results indicate that experience with hospital administration, doctors, nursing staff, physical environment, hospital pharmacy and physical environment is significant predictor of inpatient satisfaction. Physical environment was found to be significantly associated with satisfaction only among female inpatient. It was also found that repeat availing of services either from the same hospital or doctor does not increase patient satisfaction. The feasibility, reliability and validity of the instrument that measures major technical and nontechnical dimensions of quality of health-care services were established in the context of a developing country.

The study makes important contribution by empirically investigating the inpatient assessment of health-care service quality based upon their demographic information and repeated availing of services to understand how repeat visit shapes the service quality perception.

The purpose of this research is to develop and compare some determinants of service quality in both the public and private hospitals of Northern Cyprus. There is considerable lack of literature with respect to service quality in public and private hospitals.

Randomly, 454 respondents, who have recently benefited from hospital services in Famagusta, were selected to answer a modified version of the SERVQUAL Instrument. The instrument contained both service expectations and perceptions questions.

This study identifies six factors regarding the service quality as perceived in both public and private Northern Cyprus hospitals. These are: empathy, giving priority to the inpatients needs, relationships between staff and patients, professionalism of staff, food and the physical environment. Research results revealed that the various expectations of inpatients have not been met in either the public or the private hospitals

At the micro level, the lack of management commitment to service quality in both hospital settings leads doctors and nurses to expend less effort increasing or improving inpatient satisfaction. Hospital managers should also satisfy their employees, since job satisfaction leads to customer satisfaction and loyalty. Additionally, hospital administrations need to gather systematic feedback from their inpatients, establish visible and transparent complaint procedures so that inpatients' complaints can be addressed effectively and efficiently.

The hospitals need to organize training sessions based on the critical importance of service quality and the crucial role of inpatient satisfaction in the health care industry. Future studies should include the remaining regions in Cyprus in order to increase research findings' generalizability. Additionally, including other dimensions such as hospital processes and discharge management and co‐ordination may provide further insights into understanding inpatients' perceptions and intentions.

A common way to handle quality problems and increasing costs of modern health care systems is more transparency through public reporting. Thereby, patient satisfaction is seen as one main reported outcome. Previous studies proposed several associated factors. Only a few of them included organizational determinants with potential to inform the health care provider's management. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the influence of organizational contingency factors on patient satisfaction.

As a case, Switzerland's inpatient rehabilitation sector was used. Therein, a cross-sectional study of public released secondary data with an exploratory multiple linear regression (MLR) modeling approach was conducted.

Five significant influencing factors on patient satisfaction were found. They declared 42.2% of the variance in satisfaction on provider level. The organizations' supplementary insured patients, staff payment, outpatients, extracantonal patients and permanent resident population revealed significant correlations with patient satisfaction.

Drawing on publicly available cross-sectional data, statistically no causality can be proved. However, integration of routine data and organization theory can be useful for further studies.

Regarding inpatient satisfaction, improvement levers for providers' managers are as follow: first, service provision should be customized to patients' needs, expectations and context; second, employees' salary should be adequate to prevent dissatisfaction; third, the main business should be prioritized to avoid frittering.

Former studies regarding public reporting are often atheoretical and rarely used organizational variables as determinants for relevant outcomes. Therefore, uniformed data are useful.

As one of the healthcare organizations striving to reach optimum quality level, King Abdulaziz Medical City staff believed that knowing the patients' service perspective is one core service quality indicator. This article aims to spotlight the level of patient satisfaction or dissatisfaction in one Riyadh tertiary centre.

Cross‐sectional survey involving 1983 inpatient, outpatient and emergency care patients at King Abdulaziz Medical City, Riyadh using a self‐developed patient satisfaction questionnaire.

There was a significant satisfaction with room comfort (88.5 percent), room temperature (78.1 percent), room call button system (87.9 percent), room cleanliness (79.6 percent) and respectful staff (87.4 percent). Patients were significantly dissatisfied with phlebotomists not introducing themselves (74 percent), not explaining procedures (57.2 percent) and physicians not introducing themselves (59.1 percent).

Only the overall satisfaction dimensions were studied in a socio‐demographic context. Not every service was studied separately, so the patients' answers may not represent the hospital.

It is recommended that service standards in the areas in which patients were significantly dissatisfied should be raised by involving senior leaders. Areas for which patients were significantly satisfied will need to be sustained or even improved.

So far no similar service quality and patient satisfaction based studies from Saudi health care systems are reported in international peer reviewed journals.

The Ministry of Health (MOH) is the major healthcare provider in Malaysia, although the service is also being complemented by the private sector which constitutes about 35% of overall healthcare services. Public hospitals in the country are organised into national level, state level and district level. The national level hospital is Hospital Kuala Lumpur, which serves as the National Referral Centre. It is the largest hospital in the country with 2500 beds, providing a comprehensive range of tertiary care services. The state level hospitals provide a comprehensive range of secondary care services and are located in the state capital of each of the thirteen federal states in the country. These are also large hospitals with bed capacity ranging from 800‐1200. The district level hospitals on the other hand, provide basic impatient care services. For those with resident specialist, some secondary level speciality services are also provided. District hospitals without specialities are generally smaller with beds ranging from 30 to 150, while those with specialists may have beds ranging from 200 to 500.

The purpose of this paper is to provide insight, exploratory research, and support for the strategic use of hospital secondary support functions as an initial strategy for marketing healthcare, increasing patient volume, and expanding patient satisfaction.

This research paper is based upon longitudinal patient satisfaction and perception studies following both emergency room and elective‐stay hospitalization visits in Beirut. Exploratory statistical methods are used to examine substantial data comprising over 300 patient stays. Comprehensive information is presented which illustrates patient perceptions, their inflection points, and the importance of this knowledge in the marketing of hospitals and health care systems.

This research paper presents that patient perceptions are significantly influenced by hospital support functions. Further, these perceptions determine hospital reputation, influence future patient demands, and are integral to the understanding of patients as consumers of health care systems rather than consumers of medical procedures.

This paper provides support for health care system administrators who are often at odds with health care core service administrators and personnel with respect to long‐term hospital growth strategies. It illustrates that focusing on increasing core competencies is a short‐sighted approach to developing health care systems. It provides support for growing secondary support functions as being a more efficient means to increasing long‐term core competencies.

The originality of this paper is that it illustrates the conflict between the immediate medical care that health care systems understand to be their strategy and the strategies that truly grow hospital health care systems. It illustrates the paradox that requires hospitals to focus upon secondary support functions rather than core competencies in order to market themselves using strategies consistent with long‐term growth.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate Portuguese hospital inpatient satisfaction.

The study was conducted at a major university hospital in Portugal. Using the IAQH-IA mailed questionnaire, data were collected over three months (March to June 2015) from patients and families. From 1,500 former inpatients, 434 participated (29 percent response rate). Using the structural equation modeling, the authors derived satisfaction models and analyzed the relationship between quality, satisfaction and patient attitudes. Inferential statistics (bivariate analysis) were used to deal with global satisfaction determinants.

The satisfaction model was confirmed using factor analysis. Results show that developing a system for delivering timely information to both patient and relatives is relevant. Communication is a fundamental aspect for patients, which to date, seems to have been neglected by hospital managers. Education and current perceived health are important global satisfaction determinants.

Hospital managers can use the authors’ findings to measure and improve operational performance.

Knowledge about patient perception and satisfaction leads to continuing improvement in healthcare quality.

The purpose of this article is to present a comprehensive structural equation based service quality and patient satisfaction model taking into account the patient's condition before and after discharge. The authors aim to test for causality in a sample of patients from United Arab Emirates public hospitals.

Data were collected using questionnaires completed by adults discharged (n=244) from UAE public hospitals. The proposed model consists of five main constructs. Three represent service quality: quality of care (four variables); process and administration (four variables) and information (four variables). There is also one construct that represents patient's status (two variables – health status before admission and after discharge). Finally, there is one construct that represents patient's satisfaction with care (two variables – general and relative satisfaction). Structural equation modeling and LISREL using maximum likelihood estimation was used to test hypothesized model(s)/parameters(s) derived deductively from the literature.

The structural equation modeling representation provides a comprehensive picture that allows healthcare constructs and patient satisfaction causality to be tested. The goodness‐of‐fit statistics supported the healthcare quality‐patient status‐satisfaction model.

The model has been found to capture attributes that characterize healthcare quality in a developing country and could represent other modern healthcare systems. Also, it can be used to evaluate other healthcare practices from patients' viewpoints. The study highlights the importance of healthcare quality as patient satisfaction predictors by capturing other effects such as patient status.

The purpose of this study is to investigate hospital service quality and its effect on patient satisfaction and behavioural intention.

A convenience sampling technique was used in this study. A total of 350 questionnaires were distributed and 216 were returned (61.7 per cent response rate).

The results confirm that the five dimensions – admission, medical service, overall service, discharge and social responsibility – are a distinct construct for hospital service quality. Each dimension has a significant relationship with hospital service quality. The findings of this study indicate that the establishment of higher levels of hospital service quality will lead customers to have a high level of satisfaction and behavioural intention.

This research examined the concept of hospital service quality, patient satisfaction and behavioural intention from the perspective of patients. However, this study did not explore the perspective of service providers. This is a limitation in as much as it only considers the patients' view, which might be different from the providers' view.

The results indicate that managers should use the perceived service quality and customer satisfaction as mechanisms for exit strategy that will increase loyalty among the present customers.

This study will enable hospitals to have a better understanding of the effects of service quality, which will lead to patient satisfaction and behavioural intention in order to build long‐term relationships with their patients.

Little is known about complaints made by psychiatric patients. The aim of this study is to analyse complaints made by, or behalf of, inpatients at a large independent psychiatric hospital.

The hospital's complaints register was used to identify and study complaints made during 2006. A descriptive analysis was performed.

Of the 392 complaints, 39 per cent related to staff behaviour, 26 per cent to clinical matters, 18 per cent to the behaviour of other patients and the remaining 16 per cent to the physical environment and facilities. Action as a result of complaints was mainly taken at unit level but in 9 per cent of cases organisation‐wide improvements were made, for example to enrich patient treatment programmes, rectify staff shortages and improve the quality of meals.

The study took place in a specialist hospital and so the findings cannot be generalised to the wider NHS. Important differences exist between complaints made in psychiatric as opposed to general hospital settings.

Complaints are a valuable source of organisational learning for mental health services.

Given the paucity of literature on complaints in psychiatry, this study describes some in detail the nature of patients' complaints and one organisation's actions to improve patient services as a result of these complaints.