Assessment of Social Characteristics, Access to and Satisfaction with Healthcare Services in the Population of Georgia

The idea of consumer satisfaction is gaining momentum across all business sectors around the world and a satisfaction survey is utilized as an instrument to recognize deficiencies with various facets of services and offers a valuable opportunity for customers to evaluate their experience with healthcare services. A first research performed at a public hospital's paediatric clinic, which is also the first hospital to adopt the Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) model under the Ministry of Health Malaysia (MoH), with the aim of discovering prevalence and factors affecting the satisfaction of caregivers at the national referral centre. A cross-sectional research using the standard self-administered SERVQUAL questionnaire was conducted amongst caregivers accompanying their child to the clinic. It consists of 16 paired statements to evaluate their expectations and experiences with the clinic services. 459 caregivers were involved with a majority being satisfied with the clinic services. The most significant dimensions were tangibles, assurance and outcome. Caregivers from the Indian community, lower household income, and lower educational background demonstrated a higher level of satisfaction. This article suggests that although most caregivers are very satisfied with the services, greater emphasis must be placed on delivering reliable service in response to MoH's mission to provide quality and integrated people-centred health services in Malaysia.

Download Full-text

Exploring the nonlinear impact of critical incidents on users’ satisfaction with healthcare services

International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance ◽

10.1108/ijhcqa-04-2018-0089 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 32 (3) ◽

pp. 621-634 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Gerson Tontini ◽

Elaine Vaz ◽

Evelásio Vieira Neto ◽

Julio Cesar Lopes de Souza ◽

Leonardo Anésio da Silva ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Critical Incidents ◽

Healthcare Services ◽

Three Dimensions ◽

Content Type ◽

General Evaluation ◽

Health Performance ◽

Contrast Analysis ◽

Input Variables ◽

The City ◽

Satisfaction With Healthcare Services

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the nonlinear impact of users’ memories on their general evaluation of outpatient healthcare services by the integration of two methodologies: critical incidents technique (CIT) and penalty-reward contrast analysis (PRCA). Design/methodology/approach The authors carried out a survey with 356 respondents, users of seven outpatient clinics located in the city of Blumenau/SC, Brazil, during 2016. The participants were asked about their perceptions of positive and negative aspects of the service; and, using CIT, the answers were categorized according to the following dimensions: empathy, communication, facilities, access, promptness, medicines availability, complementary services, safety/confidentiality and service performance. Then, the authors evaluated the nonlinear impact of critical incidents on users’ general evaluation of the service using the identified incidents as input variables in a PRCA. Findings The findings show that users of healthcare services tend to remember emotion and health aspects positively, while technical and formal aspects tend to be more negatively than positively remembered. On the other hand, PRCA identifies that incidents of three dimensions positively influence the overall perception of the service (empathy, complementary services and privacy) and five negatively (empathy, facilities, speed, drugs/pharmacy and health performance), explaining 26.3 percent of the variation in clients’ general satisfaction. Originality/value The present paper explores the integration of two methodologies, showing how we can use open listening to healthcare service users to identify the nonlinear impact of different incidents on their general evaluation of the service. The results show that what customers remember does not necessarily influence overall customer satisfaction. The present approach allows companies to improve the process of listening to customers. There are no other papers exploring this approach, particularly in relation to healthcare services.

Download Full-text