Hospital quality management

The methodology of patient satisfaction surveys ⇒ There has been a shift in thinking about the role of the consumer as patient. It is more likely now that researchers want to know what consumers think; that they accept that what the patient tells them is an accurate reflection of what happened; and that this information can be used to improve the quality of care. ⇒ Coinciding with this shift, and related to it, is a serious questioning of the conception of satisfaction as a unitary concept whose causal variables can be measured. ⇒ Researchers now are more in favour of using several research methods, drawn from qualitative and quantitative research, to inform their survey instruments, and gather data. ⇒ The methodological complexities of patient satisfaction research are considerable and should not be downplayed. ⇒ Certain groups of people, whose social position or state of health may make them vulnerable to poorer quality care, are extremely difficult to reach via the conventional questionnaire. The use of patient satisfaction surveys ⇒ There is a need to develop greater expertise, greater support to those doing patient satisfaction work, more coordination at hospital level, greater commitment to acting on the results, and involvement of consumers at all stages of patient satisfaction work, including acting on the results. ⇒ Much patient satisfaction work treats consumers passively, that is, as providers of information, which administrators and providers may or may not do something with. ⇒ There is a need to develop appropriate infrastructure for undertaking patient satisfaction work, to develop the level of expertise, and to consider the role which independent organisations based on a consumer perspective might play in undertaking consumer appraisal activities and research in joint activities with hospitals and purchasers. ii ⇒ There are questions about whose views are sought in patient satisfaction surveys and there is a challenge to incorporate the view of those consumers who are most in need of good quality services, who are very ill, whose views are regarded as being difficult to obtain and those who are often at risk in the quality of their care. Benchmarking ⇒ The purpose for undertaking consumer feedback activity needs to be articulated and owned by hospitals as part of their overall organisational strategy. ⇒ The processes that produce patient satisfaction are more important to understand Read less