Factors Influencing the Quality of Healthcare Services

The quality of healthcare services offered decides the success of the hospital and establishes its reputation. This is why hospitals generally focus on maintaining the quality of their healthcare services at a premium level. To achieve this, healthcare institutions must concentrate on these factors influencing the quality of healthcare services.

What is meant by the quality of healthcare services?

The term "quality of healthcare services" is a holistic expression that implies a host of features like the range of medical services offered, clinical competence of the staff, hospital amenities, expertise of the physicians, ambience of the hospital, the behaviour of the staff, in-patient experience and above all, patient satisfaction. Each of the above factors contributes to the main "quality of healthcare service" and cannot be ignored in any way. Every hospital must pay attention to each of these individual factors to achieve optimum quality of healthcare services.

What are the factors influencing the quality of healthcare services?

1.Range of medical services offered

A hospital may be a small healthcare clinic or a multi-specialty hospital. But the range of the medical services offered by the hospital determine its quality of healthcare services.

For instance, patients seeking treatment for critical ailment like cardiac or pulmonary disorders always expect the hospital to be equipped with the latest diagnostic and scanning equipment like ultrasound, X-ray, CT scan, etc. This is because they hardly have the time or the frame of mind to go from one place to another for canning when they are already in trauma. So, patients generally prefer hospital possessing a complete range of diagnostic and therapeutic services.

Every hospital should offer at least the minimum range of clinical service required for diagnosing and treating the patients it serves. This includes blood pathology lab, X-ray, ultrasound, EEG, ECG, CT scan facilities, pharmacy, etc.

2. Clinical competence of the hospital staff

To assess the quality of healthcare services in a hospital, all one has to do is go for a general out-patient consultation or for a blood test. The expertise of the duty doctor in attending to you or the lab technician in taking your blood ample painlessly will give an indication of the clinical competence of the hospital staff.

Patients come to the hospital to seek clinical help for their ailments and the first thing they expect is clinical competence from the hospital staff. Every staff member of the hospital should be clinically trained and deployed for handling patient only on ascertaining their professional efficiency. The quality of healthcare services of a hospital lies in the competence of its staff to a large extent.

3. Physical ambience of the hospital

Patients are in pain and trauma when they enter a hospital. So, the moment they enter the hospital, they should feel relaxed and reassured. This is possible only when the hospital has a clean, hygienic, and pleasing ambience. The interiors of the hospital should be spotless, the décor should be inviting, the furniture should be comfortable, and the atmosphere must be sweet-smelling. There should be no noise or commotion in the hospital and everything should function seamlessly. Such a hospital is said to have top quality of healthcare services.

4. Amenities provided by the hospital

A hospital is considered to possess the best quality of healthcare services if it provides all the amenities required by the patients in full measure. This includes lifts, cafeteria, free Wi-Fi, etc. Apart from such physical amenities, facilities like online appointment scheduling and tracking, video consultation, etc also elevate the quality of the healthcare services provided by the hospital to the premium range.

5. Expertise of the physicians

A hospital is a home for recuperation and relief. So, the main thing patient expect from a hospital is swift relief and recovery from their ailments. This depends largely on the expertise of its physicians.

A hospital however richly furnished or equipped, will lose its purpose and reputation if it lacks physicians with ample expertise. This is why hospitals should enlist highly qualified and skilled physicians and specialists to maintain the quality of the healthcare services.

6. Behaviour of the staff

A pleasing, considerate and helping staff is what every successful hospital requires. Hospitals must train their staff with the help of expert healthcare consulting firm to make them improve patient satisfaction.

Such a courteous staff will be the asset to the hospital and increase its quality of the healthcare services.

7. In-patient experience

The experience of a patient in the hospital denotes the quality of the healthcare services. Factors like the waiting time of the patient at the hospital, the friendliness of the staff, the comfort and convenience of the patient wards, the number of visits required to complete the treatment, the follow-up from the hospital on the patient's condition, the way the patient's need and complaint are addressed- all these contribute to the in-patient experience at the hospital.

8. Patient satisfaction

Patient satisfaction mirrors the quality of the healthcare services offered by the hospital. Right from the moment the patient enters the hospital to his final exit, every need of the patient should be addressed by the hospital. Only then can the hospital ensure 100% satisfaction from the patient.

Hospitals can enhance the quality of their healthcare services by becoming more patient-centric and efficiency-driven. They can seek the guidance of expert healthcare consultants to improve the quality of their healthcare services and enrich their reputation.

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