A Measure Of Health Care Quality: Patient Satisfaction

Personality characteristics of healthcare personnel, courtesy, affection, interest and understanding, professional attitudes, ways of presenting their knowledge and skills, especially the patient-nurse relationship plays an important role in patient satisfaction.

In the literature, the most important factor affecting patient satisfaction is communication and adequate information to the patient.

Because the ability of health care providers to communicate with patients plays a major role in making patients feel valued or worthless. While patient-centred and individualized care makes the patient feel valuable, it also creates a relationship of trust between people.

Also, feeling valued as an individual is in a sense related to being adequately informed. In many cases, health personnel who determine the needs of individuals and provide information about these needs make patients feel valuable.

Improving nursing services is important in order to increase patient satisfaction in the health sector. Patients’ satisfaction with nursing care during their hospital stay is the most important factor affecting their satisfaction with all hospital services.

It is stated that nursing service is a very important factor in patients’ satisfaction and dissatisfaction with their hospital experiences, and therefore, the interactions and behaviours of nursing staff with patients are the main factors in patient satisfaction.

The reasons why nursing services are important in patient satisfaction

In hospitals, personnel at all levels of the hospital determine the quality of patient care, together with physical tools and equipment.

Hospitals established to provide patient care services have to use their existing resources such as personnel, tools and equipment efficiently in order to achieve their goals. Staff is an important tool for a hospital that carries out its services in a labour-intensive way to achieve its goals.

The efficiency and productivity level of the hospital is directly related to the staff’s qualifications such as interest, effort, diligence and competence.

The management and satisfaction of hospital employees producing health-related services, which are the most complex services of today, will require the planned efforts with the management approach, and this can be achieved by opting for hospital management consultancy in India.

The theme of quality in health care accompanied clinics and doctors’ offices for a long time. The goal of a health service is always to avoid or eliminate illnesses or to alleviate symptoms or to make them controllable for as long as possible.

It has to do with the quality of the treatment. The right measure at the right time leads to the perfect result if it is carried out correctly and corresponds to the patient’s goals.

Nurses are always with them to meet the needs of patients and the maintenance and rehabilitation of individuals are among the primary responsibilities of nurses.

The physical or social comfort that hospitals provide can make individuals feel at home and increase their satisfaction. Patients who are adequately informed, valued, and feel at home feel more confident in both the treatment and care they receive and the healthcare team providing this service.

Patient satisfaction is a multidimensional concept that includes the provision of the service, the interaction of the patient and the service providers, the existence of the service, the continuity of the service, the competence of the service providers and communication features.

Therefore, patient satisfaction is regarded as a result of health services and generally as an indicator of quality of care, and this is why, we suggest you to turn to healthcare consultancy in India.

Medical Care And Patient Loyalty: How Are They Related?

A hospital that cannot increase the number of patients is likely to suffer from patient loyalty. Patient loyalty generally occurs in three ways.

  • PhD-based loyalty
  • Hospital-based loyalty
  • Loyalty to brand power

PhD-Based Loyalty

As the patient is satisfied with the doctor and his abilities, it becomes dependent on the doctor. Even with the slightest dissatisfaction with the hospital in general, he does not go to another hospital.

As the personal talents of the doctor come to the fore, his patient continues to come to the hospital as long as he does not leave the institution.

The loyalty rate is high, the abandonment rate is low. It is an advantage to have such doctors with high caliber and strong human relations working in your hospital, with the help of top hospital consulting firms in India, you can ensure growth of your hospital.

It is reflected in your turnover, profitability and number of patients. However, the situation turns into a disadvantage, as the number of patients will decrease as soon as you set off with these doctors.

In a sense, there is a risk that your continuity in terms of profitability, turnover and number of patients will be interrupted at any moment because you are doing business dependent on individuals.

The doctoral loyalty method is like a chain. While the doctor is pleasing the patient so that the patient does not run away, the hospital has to please the doctor so that the doctor does not escape.

Hospital Based Loyalty

Close relationships should be maintained with family health centres, clinics, and associations operating in your region. These are your potential business partners, and you should look for ways to get together with them on different occasions from time to time, and highlight the corporate identity of your hospital.

But it doesn’t end here, it even starts here. Because the potential business partners we mentioned can only refer the patient. The stages after the patient comes to you are up to the abilities of your institution.

If the abilities of your stingers get ahead of your institution, your doctor will win a patient, not your hospital.

However, hospitals are not obliged to doctors to ensure patient loyalty. In order to ensure patient loyalty by hospitals, patient-oriented procedures should be carried out at every stage of the institution and the expectations and needs of patients should be met at the maximum level.

According to top healthcare consulting firms in India, the hospital should be in contact with the patient as well as the patient’s communication with the doctor.

For example, it should be ensured that all the hospital personnel they encounter until the patient enters the doctor’s room, starting from the first security guard when the patient arrives at the institution, try to help the patient with the same understanding of quality and make the patient feel special in all processes and receive high quality service.

After leaving the doctor’s examination, he should continue to receive the same quality service until he leaves the institution. It is necessary to give the message to the person who is satisfied with all the processes that all the doctors working in that hospital are very good and successful doctors.

The most appropriate unit to receive this message is the patient communication centre, that is, the call centre. With an effective call centre, it is possible to make patients and their relatives loyal to the hospital, not to the doctor.

Quality Accreditation is making Hospital care better

In the globalized world, the healthcare industry is not only impacted by corporate growth but various other forces like business competition, medical tourism, medical insurance, patient expectations, etc. Because of this, the quality of healthcare at hospitals is affected. Quality of care is one of the prominent agendas of any health policy. This has led to the establishment of national and international regulating bodies that offer accreditation to hospitals. Hospital Accreditation is a process by which an organization like a hospital, clinic, and other healthcare services, are assessed on a set of predetermined standards.

NABH (National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Healthcare Providers) is a healthcare governing body in India that ensures quality healthcare and peerless patient experience and satisfaction at hospitals through its regulations. JCI(Joint Commission International) is an independent, not-for-profit organization that evaluates and accredits healthcare organizations in all countries of the world, except United States. Both NABH and JCI accreditations aim to improve the quality of care through diverse approaches which are either mandated by the government, voluntary or initiated by independent agencies.

Accreditation and Improvement in quality of hospital care 

The following points show how accreditation helps in improving the quality of health care.

a) Accreditation ensures better patient care:

As we know, the future of healthcare is aimed at more efficient and high-quality healthcare. Surveys have shown that accreditation emphasizes better patient satisfaction scores. When the result is a higher patient satisfaction score, it entails profit and is beneficial to all stakeholders, patients, and employees. Patients are the biggest beneficiaries. Accreditation generates high quality of care and patient safety. The patients get services from authorized medical staff. The rights of patients are admired and protected. Patient satisfaction is regularly evaluated. 

b) Accreditation to a Hospital stimulates continuous improvement.

It enables hospitals in demonstrating a commitment to quality care. It uplifts community confidence in the services provided by the hospital. It also provides an opportunity for the healthcare unit to benchmark with the best. Hospitals tend to naturally put in the effort, invest in better technology, and raise the bar for better patient care.

c) Accreditation provides a sense of trust in legal circles:

Accreditation provides an objective system of jury empanelment by insurance-vendors and other Third Parties. This helps in obtaining better third-party insurance vendor support or receiving more backing from stakeholders to enhance infrastructure. Accreditation provides access to reliable, authentic and certified information on facilities, infrastructure, and level of care.

d) Accreditation improves working environments for staff:

The better the healthcare organization in regards to infrastructure, cleanliness, faster services, and good maintenance of healthcare equipment, the easier it is for staff to manage patient data and patient care effectively. The patients get services from authorized medical staff. It leads to improved productivity, better staff performance, and higher chances of greater patient satisfaction.

e) Accreditation maintains the hospital image:

Accreditation is an ongoing process that takes years to achieve. This means the hospital must show credibility in its services, must be responsive to improvements being suggested, must display full transparency in communication to staff and stakeholders, and must have the hunger to innovate for better patient care. This improved care quality would automatically facilitate lesser or no patient complaints and more patient and stakeholders satisfaction and would make the hospital most preferred among the patients, thereby improving the hospital’s image.

All in all, accreditation improves the overall professional development of Clinicians and Paramedical staff and provides leadership for quality improvement within medicine and nursing.

Safe Hospital Environment and Patient Safety

Any environment in which a person lives has certain factors that negatively affect him (risk factors). To maintain health, a person must be well adapted to them.

Hospitalization is always stressful for the body. Both the disease itself and the new environment force a person to change their usual way of life and to satisfy their needs in a new way.

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Therefore, the task of the medical staff is to maximally eliminate the influence of risk factors on the patient and to create conditions in the medical facility that will ensure his safety throughout the entire period of stay in the hospital.

A safe hospital environment is considered to be an environment in which the comfort and safety of both patients and medical staff of a health facility is provided. Such an environment is created by events of a certain nature:

  • Infection safety mode
  • Ensuring patient hygiene
  • Compliance by health workers with personal hygiene requirements
  • Therapeutic and protective regime of the medical facility.

Control over the implementation of measures to create a safe hospital environment is closely related to the complex overall assessment of the quality of nursing care.

The medical and protective regime is a complex of preventive and therapeutic measures aimed at ensuring maximum physical and mental comfort for patients and medical staff, and for this, hospital management consultancy in India is here for you.

The safety of the patient is an aspect increasingly key to the agents of the health sector. To guarantee a safe supply chain, it is necessary to make all the processes of both logistics management and patient care more efficient. Standards become at this point an essential factor to guarantee safe and efficient care.

Currently, a safe hospital environment is one of the most pressing and at the same time complex problems in the professional work of medical workers.

A safe hospital environment is defined as the environment that best provides the patient and healthcare professional with the comfort and safety conditions that effectively meet all of their vital needs, you can contact hospital consulting companies in India, if you are not able to make such environment in your hospital on your own.

The hospital environment has certain elements that negatively affect the health of both medical personnel and patients. To maintain health, a person must be well adapted to these risk factors.

The patient, getting into such an environment, is weakened, suffers physically and psychologically, both from the disease itself and from the unusual hospital environment for him.

Properly organized work of medical personnel will help the patient quickly adapt to the hospital environment and cope with the disease without prejudice to his health.

Considering that the main task of doctors is to take care of patients, they also try to do management tasks at the same time, bringing with it an increasing workload and problems.

The organization of the work of any hospital is aimed at creating a safe environment- both for its patients and for medical workers. Thus, it is important to turn to hospital consultancy in India to solve all the obstacles.