Quality improvement: What is in it for the patient?

The improvement of health care service has a great effect on patient satisf action. During the service delivery, the health care organization attempts to answer the reasonable expectations of patients. The expectations relate to many service dimensions, among them the phone system, appointment availa bility, and waiting times. The research questions of this study are: can th e implementation of quality initiatives improve patient satisfaction with t he phone system, appointment availability, and waiting times and do patient s from diverse cultural backgrounds exhibit different levels of satisfactio n? The study was undertaken in a public clinic, with a culturally diverse c lientele, including 194 patients. The authors use a combination of the long itudinal and cross-sectional research design to test the propositional mode l. The findings show that the implementation of the quality initiative sign ificantly improved patient satisfaction with the appointment availability a nd waiting time. On the other hand, the implementation of the quality initi ative did not improve patient satisfaction with the phone system. Some cult urally diverse patients exhibited different levels of expectations of the c are provider and quality in terms of patient satisfaction with the appointm ent availability.