remember to include in the analysis, which one of the three categories Structure, Process, or Outcome is the source of the problem, in addition a typical project consists of four steps:
Define the improvement goal.
Analyze current practices.
Design and implement improvements.
Measure success
Case Scenario III
With the growing community consciousness about hospital services, expectations about the hospitals’ performance are also rising. Hospitals are being reoriented from just being centers for medical care and treatment to be more community oriented. The faith of people in the efficiency of public hospital is declining because of the negligence and indifferent attitude on the part of hospital authorities. It is said that each hospital has an image of its own, a tempo of work and emotional atmosphere peculiar to its traditions, its community of staff and patients. The nature of staff relationship directly influences the staff-patient relationships. It is for this reason there is different working atmosphere in different hospitals. Some hospitals enjoy a good reputation and others a bad one.
Almadina Hospital is a community hospital located in a small town in the northern region of the Kingdom. The hospital has been collecting data on patients’ satisfaction. Five opinion/interview surveys were conducted by the hospital to test the level of satisfaction among the patients for both inpatient and out-patient-departments (OPD). These five opinion surveys were:
1. Level of satisfaction of OPD Patients in Almadina Community Hospital.
2. Level of satisfaction among the patients regarding the behavior of the hospital staff.
3. Quality of cleanliness in the hospital.
4. Availability of medications in the hospital.
5. In-patients: Quality of amenities provided in the hospital.
The levels of patient satisfaction of OPD patients indicates that about half (54%) of the patients were not satisfied with building arrangements for OPD and the responses of the patients regarding the waiting room facility also reveals that most of them were not satisfied (70%). Similar trend was observed regarding the registration procedure (70%) and other official procedures (62%). However, on the contrary when asked about the attention given by the doctor majority (74%) of the respondents were satisfied with it.
The patient’s satisfaction regarding the diagnostic facilities like ECG, X–ray and laboratory services available with the hospital is far from being satisfactory. As the trends indicate 82%, 78%, and 80% of the respondents were not satisfied with the ECG, X–ray and laboratory services respectively. In general the patients were not satisfied with the hospital services, the behavior of the hospital staff, quality of cleanliness in the hospital, availability of medications in the hospital, or quality of amenities provided in the hospital (Table 1 and Table 2). Clearly the patients were not satisfied with Almadina Community Hospital, which prompted the leadership to recruit you as the new quality director to improve performance in these areas and eventually improve patients’ satisfaction.
3. What are you going to do? Be sure to explore all of the possible options and to justify your decisions.
Table 1: Satisfaction Level of Patients with OPD
Figures in parentheses are percentages
Table 2: Satisfaction Level of Patients with inpatient services
Figures in parentheses are percentages