The Impact of Hospital Accreditation on the Patient Satisfaction of In-Patient Department Services

Abstract

Patient satisfaction is as important as other clinical health measures and is a chief means of assessing the strength of health care delivery. The current competitive environment has driven health care organisations to concentrate on patient satisfaction as a means to acquire and keep market share. If you don’t recognise what your strengths and weaknesses are, you can’t compete effectively. Objectives: To study the impact of National Accreditation Board for Hospitals & Healthcare Providers (NABH) Accreditation, India on the patient satisfaction of In-Patient Department Services. Methods: It is a quantitative, descriptive and inferential research based case study in which sample of a population was studied by structured satisfaction survey questionnaires (before and after the accreditation) in a private tertiary care hospital in Secunderabad, Telangana State, India to determine its characteristics, and it is then inferred that the population has the same or different characteristics. Significance of Research: It was observed initially before the accreditation that there was a lower satisfaction rate in in-patient department services, which was affecting the study hospitals’ business. Hypothesis: Null Hypothesis (H0) and Alternative Hypothesis (H1) were used and tested to compare the before and after impact of accreditation by applying to each question of the questionnaire. Study Design: The closed ended questionnaire was developed considering the in-patient services process by incorporating the six dimensions of quality Safe, Timely, Effective, Efficient, Equitable, and Patient-centred (STEEP) and tested prior to implementing. Questionnaires were given to the patients for completion upon discharge two months before and two months after the accreditation. Study Population: Simple random sampling method was selected, and the researcher had involved conscious patients of all age groups and gender. Data Collections: Primary data were collected from the survey questionnaires. Secondary data were collected from relevant published journals, articles, research papers, academic literature and web portals. Conclusion: It is very evident from this research that at the 5 % level of significance, the chi-square test indicates that there is a significant difference in the satisfaction with respect to the overall experience in the hospital between before the accreditation group and after accreditation group with p-value <0.001.The responses of satisfaction has improved from N=421 (Satisfied=245, Highly satisfied= 176) from N=241 (Satisfied = 124, Highly satisfied= 117).