Patient’s satisfaction and service quality of clinical laboratory: A questionnaire based analysis in accredited tertiary care government hospital

Abstract

The Phlebotomy is the first phase of interaction of the patient to the laboratory. It is therefore considered as an important step of good clinical laboratory practice and is referred to as "pre-analytic phase”. Patient’s satisfaction is one of the key quality indicators in the laboratory. : To assess the patient's satisfaction , to investigate, monitor, and analyse the non-conformities in order to remove the root cause by performing corrective and preventive action in order to improve the quality of laboratory services.: A cross-sectional study conducted in a NABH/NABL accredited government super-speciality hospital on 1500 patients over a period of three months. Data were collected in a self administered predesigned, pretested, structured questionaired feedback form in both Hindi and English, further reviewed by Senior Pathologist in a quality assurance meet and CAPA.A statistical analysis performed by using SPSS version 16.0 software and Likert Scale.Overall patient satisfaction with phlebotomy services found to be high, i.e 88%. Highest mean rating of satisfaction was 99.2% for parameter -Whether the seats during phlebotomy was comfortable. The parameter for washroom facility accounted for 75 % dissatisfaction followed by 63.4% overall dissatisfaction noted for ambulatory services. Phlebotomy services needs improvements: 12%.The study enlighten to understand patient preferences through a patient satisfaction questionnaire known as a "feedback form." Knowing how our patients feel about our laboratory services is vital and to identify all problems (non-conformities) found in the analysis and take appropriate CAPA.