Abstract
Abstract In this paper, public health care administration issues are reviewed and public hospital patients’ views on quality of health care are empirically tested. The purpose is to support the recommendation of new public policies that lead to better performance, if necessary. Hospital patients’ views on service quality were assessed through a questionnaire to estimate a global customer satisfaction measure. We argue that customer satisfaction should be measured through multiple indicators, as a latent variable. Thus, we considered the latent segment models (LSM) approach to assess customer service satisfaction. We found a twosegment latent structure: segment 1, the satisfied, with 48 percent of patients, mostly male and middle-aged patients; and segment 2, the unsatisfied, with 52 percent of patients, mostly female and youngest/oldest patients.
Highlights
We review recent developments in public health care administration, and we present a tool that public administrators/managers can use to identify typologies in public administration issues in general and health care issues in particular
Much is needed to refine that measurement standard in order to advance our understanding of health care quality in public hospitals
This study aims to empirically test public hospital patients’ views on quality of health care in order to recommend, if necessary, the adoption of new public policies that lead to better performance
Summary
We review recent developments in public health care administration, and we present a tool that public administrators/managers can use to identify typologies in public administration issues in general and health care issues in particular. That tool is used to answer the question, to what extent patients (and customers in general) are satisfied with the conditions offered by public health organizations, through the classification of patient satisfaction into segments, according to certain attributes. There is poor evidence on health care quality in Portuguese public hospitals. Public reporting on health care quality has led to few or no effects. Taking Portugal’s case, much research is needed to define a measurement standard of health care quality in public hospitals. Much is needed to refine that measurement standard in order to advance our understanding of health care quality in public hospitals
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