Measurement of Patient Satisfaction as a Quality Indicator of Hospital Health Services: The Case of Outpatient Clinics in General Hospital

Purpose: The measurement of patient satisfaction by the provided health services in outpatient clinic of the General Hospital of Athens. Material-Method: To measure the satisfaction of health service users was chosen a sample of 400 people using the method of stratified random sampling. The data were collected using a weighted structured questionnaire in those who had an appointment with the hospital doctors (period from 1st to June 30th 2012). The evaluation of patient satisfaction for services imprinted in two ways: (a) assessment of total services in ten-point scale, where 1 represents dissatisfied and 10 very satisfied and (B) assessment of individual medical, nursing and administrative services with the five-point scale. The five-point scale was established as follows: value 1: very bad 2: rather bad 3: neither good nor bad, 4: rather good 5: very good. For the statistical analysis was used descriptive statistics, t test and ANONA test. Results: The response percentage of interviewees reached 83.25%. In assessing the overall satisfaction was found that in the ten-point scale, the Hospital is evaluated positively. The average total score of evaluation is quite high (8.3). Important parameters of satisfaction for the majority of patients were courtesy, specialized knowledge and the professionalism of the staff of outpatient clinic. 85.29% of the sample declared absolutely satisfied by the behavior of the reception staff, 72.37% by the behavior of doctors, 69.67% by the quality of nursing care. However, the problematic aspects of the visit were identified to the responsiveness, the access, the outpatient clinics and the accommodations infrastructure. The lowest percentage of completely satisfied corresponds to the replies on the notice boards and on the information at the hospital entrance (5.41% and 5.71% respectively). Dissatisfaction was expressed for the long waiting time between the desired date for visit and the scheduled date (percentage of fully satisfied 14.71%), as well as for waiting time in order to be respect the scheduled time (percentage of fully satisfied 12.01%). Noteworthy is that the majority of interviewees would recommend the hospital to friends and family environment (percentages: definitely yes 58, 86%, rather yes 36.94%). Conclusions: The overall assessment of the services provided by the outpatient clinic of Hospital was positive. However, it appeared to have problems in the organization, delays and infrastructure of clinics, for which must be taken corrective measures to ensure that the services that patients benefit are characterized by high quality.