A pilot study on patients'' recognition of health care quality and their ability to make judgement

• Main Authors: Yi-Chen Ho, 何宜真
• Other Authors: Shou-Hsia Cheng
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 1999
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/92024687488778236771

碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 醫療機構管理研究所 === 87 === Quality of medical treatment is one of the important determinants. Patients would consider while choosing among hospitals. It seems that, in spite of the Hospital Accreditation, there is no other information resource available for patients to judge whether a certain hospital can provide high quality medical service. The objective of the present research was to examine whether patients can understand the information summarized from Hospital Accreditation, as well as whether they can compare quality of medical treatment among hospitals using those indicators. In addition, this study intends to know what dimensions of medial service quality that patients are able to judge and to what degree they care about? The present research will also discuss and report the findings about the ways patients deploy to make assessments. The sample frame consists of patients admitted in seven hospitals located in Northern Taiwan. Data ware collected via structured questionnaires with face-to-face interview and a telephone interview follow up. Face-to-face interviews were used mainly for investigating patients'' recognition and knowledge on medical service quality, while telephone interviews were conducted to find out patients'' evaluation on the quality of hospital care after they were discharged. Major research findings are listed as follow: 1. Patients'' recognition on medical service quality -- Most patients know little about the indicators and contents of the Hospital Accreditation, there for, it''s difficult for them to obtain or use such kind of information to compare medical service quality; 2. Patients'' abilities to judge different quality dimensions and to what degree they care about these dimensions -- Most patients can''t make judgement on intangible aspects such as the quality of medication, medical equipment and doctors'' treatment ability. They seem to care more about the interpersonal perspectives such as staff''s attitudes, oral explanation and room check; 3. The comparisons of patients'' evaluation on hospital quality-- The multiple-aspect quality assessment composed of a batch of questions may provide more information than a single-question assessment format. We find that the former is a better reference base for evaluating hospital service quality than the latter. So, we should develop a better instrument to collect patients'' experiences during hospitalization with standard forms and provide those information for others who need that.