Factors affecting patient satisfaction: An exploratory study for quality management in health-care sector

摘要

Purpose:To examine factors impacting patient satisfaction and relationships with demographic characteristics in third level health-care services.Summary:Patient satisfaction is central to health-care services and measures are being implemented for improving patient satisfaction in hospitals. Previous studies have shown that overall satisfaction from various factors of service quality such as technical, functional, infrastructural, interpersonal and environmental that contribute to customer satisfaction. Total Quality Management is aimed at achieving overall satisfaction of the customer as well as society in an effective and cost efficient manner. Tertiary-level hospitals refer to the third level of health-care systems that provides health-care to patients suffering from chronic health problems. From multi-specialty hospitals people expect excellent patient care and a comfortable stay. In India, 20% of health-care services are provided by the government. Private hospitals provide 60% of out-patient and 40% of inpatient care. Private hospitals are more concerned about making profits than social concerns. There exists wide differences between the health-care provided by the private and public sector hospitals. Private hospitals provide much better services compared to government hospitals. The National Board for Quality Promotion is working on developing a system to measure hospital service quality based on clinical outcomes and service quality, though many studies have been conducted on the critical factors of patient satisfaction they are mostly pertaining to developed countries. The social and financial situation in a country like India are factors influencing the service quality especially when the customer is emotionally involved in the outcome of the process as in the case of health-care. The article examines the factors that affect patient satisfaction in multispecialty hospitals in Indian the presence or absence of health insurance and other demographics. (54 refs.).