THE DEVELOPMENT AND APPLICATION OF A PATIENT SATISFACTION MEASUREMENTSYSTEM FOR HOSPITAL-WIDE QUALITY IMPROVEMENT

A regional Swedish hospital has been the site of a quality improvement program that focuses on patient satisfaction, staff work environment and quality of hospital services, This article describes the study com ponent that measures patients' views of the quality of care, The purpo se of this study was to develop a reliable and valid instrument, to de termine the predictors of patients' ratings of quality and to measure patient satisfaction at two points in time to determine whether patien t ratings change following a quality improvement initiative, The instr ument developed in this study was designed to assess patients' percept ions of the quality of hospital services, staff work environment and o verall satisfaction for the purpose of providing feedback to hospital staff. This information would be used for quality improvement efforts within the hospital, Unique to this instrument are questions regarding patients' perceptions of the hospital staff work environment, The res ults revealed that the questionnaire demonstrated valid and reliable p roperties, The significant predictors of quality ratings were informat ion concerning one's illness, and perceptions of the staff work enviro nment, Patient satisfaction was measured and then reassessed following the implementation of various department-based improvement programs, The reassessment revealed significantly higher patient ratings in most areas, An intrinsic aspect of this quality program was the engagement of, and feedback process to, hospital personnel, Questionnaire result s were reported graphically to hospital management and staff, thus ser ving as a catalyst for improvement, Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Scienc e Ltd.