Factors Determining Patient Satisfaction

Have you ever wondered what patients expect from your hospital? How to deliver a superior patient experience?

This blog is written for hospital managers, healthcare service quality managers, patient experience managers, doctors, nurses, patient/customer care executives, and other front-line executives in healthcare service settings who are in charge of improving patient experience in their hospitals.

Patient satisfaction is a multi-dimensional healthcare construct affected by many variables. Patient satisfaction enhances hospital image, which in turn translates into increased service use and market share. Satisfied patients are likely to exhibit favourable behavioural intentions, which are beneficial to the healthcare provider’s long-term success.

Patient satisfaction is predicted by several factors that are broadly classified into four categories:

Reliability
Responsiveness
Tangibles
Empathy

Categories	Variables
Reliability	Professional Credibility, Competence, Confidence, Diagnosis and Treatment Accuracy, Efficiency, Continuity of Care, and Clinical/Health Outcomes.
Responsiveness	Communication (Amount of Information Provided, Attention Given to Patients, Explaining Health Condition and Lab Reports, Answering Questions, Listening to Concerns), and Promptness.
Tangibles	Physical Facilities, Nursing Care, Food (Overall Satisfaction, Receiving what was Ordered, Temperature, Taste, Freshness), Housekeeping Service, Technical Service, Cleanliness, and Other Service Availability.
Empathy	Staff Demeanor (Physician and Staff Friendliness), Time Spent with the Physician, and Care.

Factors Determining Patient Satisfaction

If you are a healthcare service professional, and if you want to improve patient satisfaction in your hospital, consider working on the above mentioned variables.

Reference

Naidu, A. (2009), “Factors affecting patient satisfaction and healthcare quality”, International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance, Vol. 22 No. 4, pp. 366-381.