A STUDY OF INPATIENT AND OUTPATIENT SATISFACTION IN PRIVATE HOSPITALS: A CASE STUDY IN AN UPAZILLA AREA, BANGLADESH.

Abstract

Health care system in the world is moving from product-centered to customer-centered. In this regard, patients' satisfaction is an essential component of quality assessment. Quality care is one of the central dimensions of public health.  Good quality care needs to be delivered at the earliest and at the proper time. Quality care can be divided by measurement into structure, process and outcome. A patient’s satisfaction may not be totally influenced by the quality of care and the quality of physician available, but it reflects how medical care has been delivered. Although, their main expectation is getting cured and going back to their work, but there are other factors, which affect their satisfaction. To provide the highest level of satisfaction that is profitable to both the patient and the provider, management must control both the perception of expectation and the quality of delivery of the healthcare services. It is very obvious that patients must be satisfied while in or out of the hospital. So, patient satisfaction is an internationally accepted factor which needs to be studied repeatedly for the smooth functioning of the hospital’s/healthcare systems. It is expected that continuous monitoring of expectations of indoor and outdoor patients will help an evaluation of care of hospital services from feedbacks provided by patients. The current study is specifically useful for the assessment of the Bangladeshi health care system because the system is commonly allied with a lack of patient/ customer satisfaction especially for private hospitals. The purpose of the study is an attempt to assess the level of satisfaction among inpatients and outpatients from the perspective of different dimensions such as information, order taking, billing, payment, consultation, hospitality, safekeeping and exceptions. The present study Yet, the findings of the survey are quite helpful if they are transformed into actions for improving the quality of health care.