Abstract:
In healthcare systems, emergency departments (EDs) are the most vital elements, in that they provide critical and immediate healthcare services to the patients 24 hours a day. Patient satisfaction is a crucial concept and a practical tool for evaluating the performance of the EDs. This study presents a unique framework for the performance optimization of an emergency department in a big general hospital in Iran based on the standard patient satisfaction indicators. Standard questionnaire is designed and used in a large and busy emergency department. The reliability and validity of the questionnaires are obtained by Cronbach’s alpha and parametric and non-parametric analysis of variance (ANOVA), respectively. Afterwards, the most efficient data envelopment analysis (DEA) model is selected and employed to assess the performance of the emergency department based on the selected indicators. Results show that certain indicators such as quality of equipment, performance of physicians and treatment time have the greatest impact (weight) on overall patient satisfaction. The framework of this study is a practical approach for all types of emergency departments in the process of the improvement and optimization of patient satisfaction.
Machine summary:
Patient satisfaction is a crucial concept and a practical tool for evaluating the performance of the EDs. This study presents a unique framework for the performance optimization of an emergency department in a big general hospital in Iran based on the standard patient satisfaction indicators.
Afterwards, the most efficient data envelopment analysis (DEA) model is selected and employed to assess the performance of the emergency department based on the selected indicators.
, 2018; Gupta, Rodeghier, & Lis, 2013; Schoenfelder, Klewer, & Kugler, 2011).
Also, Halkos and Tzeremes (2011), Mitropoulos, Mitropoulos, and Sissouras (2013), and Athanassopoulos and Gounaris (2001) have employed various models of DEA and non-parametric methods in order to assess and measure the efficiency of the public health systems in Greece.
According to three inputs including the average encounter time per patient visit, the average number of laboratory tests per patient visit and the average number of radiology orders per patient visit and also the rate of non-return patient visits within 72 hours as the output, Fiallos, Patrick, Michalowski, and Farion (2017) applied a DEA model to develop an efficient tool for evaluating the performance of pediatric emergency department physicians.
Therefore, we have: Input: Treatment time (X) Output (1): Emergency environment (Y1) Output (2): Doctors' performance (Y2) Output (3): Nurses' performance (Y3) Output (4): Equipment quality (Y4) Questionnaire Design In the next step, based on the indicators and items considered in this study, a standard questionnaire was developed for measuring the level of satisfaction of the patients.