Quality improvement: what is in it for the patient?

The improvement of health care service has a great effect on patient satisfaction. 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 availability and waiting times. The research questions of this study are: can the implementation of quality initiatives improve patient satisfaction with the phone system, appointment availability and waiting times and do patients from diverse cultural backgrounds exhibit different levels of satisfaction? The study was undertaken in a public clinic, with a culturally diverse clientele, including 194 patients. The authors use a combination of the longitudinal and cross-sectional research design to test the propositional model. The findings show that the implementation of the quality initiative significantly improved patient satisfaction with the appointment availability and waiting time. On the other hand, the implementation of the quality initiative did not improve patient satisfaction with the phone system. Some culturally diverse patients exhibited different levels of expectations of the care provider and quality in terms of patient satisfaction with the appointment availability.