Determinants of patient satisfaction: Lessons from large-scale inpatient interviews in Vietnam

Abstract

Patient satisfaction, a healthcare recipient's reaction to salient aspects of their service experience, has been considered an important metric of the overall quality of healthcare in both advanced and developing countries. Given the growing number of studies on patient satisfaction in developing and transitioning countries, publications using high-quality patient surveys in these countries remain scarce. This study examines factors associated with inpatient satisfaction levels using nationwide, large-scale interview data from 10,143 randomized and voluntary patients of 69 large and public hospitals in Vietnam during 2017-2018. We find that older patients, poor patients, female patients, patients with lower levels of education, patients not working for private enterprises (or foreign enterprises), and rural patients reported higher levels of overall satisfaction. Health insurance is found to have positive influence on overall patient satisfaction, primarily driven by limiting patient concerns about treatment costs, as well as increasing positive perceptions of hospital staff. We further find that patients who paid extra fees for their hospital admission expressed higher scores for hospital living arrangements and medical staff, but were mostly dissatisfied with treatment costs. These findings have important policy implications for current policy makers in Vietnam as well as for other countries with limited healthcare resources and ongoing healthcare reforms.

Digital marketplace to improve healthcare access and transparency in Vietnam

“…With the caveat that this data remains limited due to a smaller sample size of patients who left reviews on the site (225 patients), the percentage remains significantly higher than other surveys of Vietnamese healthcare satisfaction rates of 42%. 11 Additionally, 27% of patients have booked more than one appointment through the platform, the same repeat purchase rate considered favourable among e-commerce platforms 12 -let alone in the healthcare industry in which patients may only need care one or two times per year.…”

Ranking Hospital Hoteling Services from Patients’ Perspective Using Importance-Performance Analysis

“…In this regard, studies carried out in USA and Vietnam showed that the transparency of costs was an organizational priority, requiring careful planning and investment in personnel training and technology. In fact, enhancing patients' financial communication would increase their satisfaction and loyalty (38,39). A study in China in 2014 showed that lower medical costs significantly correlated with patients' satisfaction, and 63% of the patients expressing dissatisfaction with hospital services complained of their high costs (40).…”

Evaluating patient`s satisfaction and quality perception towards health services rendered at JTH, a major referral Hospital mostly depending on external Donners, Juba / South Sudan

“…According to, 14 the Poor quality healthcare can result in loss of patient lives, revenue, time and resources, trust and respect, community apathy and negative hospital reputation. The World Bank study group 13 reported that the ratio of healthcare workers to the population is below the WHO standard of 2.28 per 1000 population, Patient satisfaction has been considered a mandatory barometer to evaluate how well a healthcare system is working in a number of advanced countries such as France and Germany, however, it receives limited attention in developing countries, 1 Improved patient care has become a priority for all health care service providers with the optimum objective of achieving a high degree of patient satisfaction therefore Patient satisfaction is the state of pleasure or happiness that the patients experience while using a health service, 2 Patient Satisfaction is the perception of patient towards health care services , this concept of patient`s satisfaction according to 3 has moved from a more theoretical essence to a more technical and operational approach, similarly understood as the degree of convergence between the expectations patients have about the ideal care and their perception of the care itself ,corresponds to the gap between the expected and perceived characteristics and the expression of patient's judgment on the quality of care received in all aspects, they also consider that patient satisfaction as an indicator of the quality of care and Patient's satisfaction is the voice of patient that counts since it reflects the response to experienced interactions with the care givers. The quality of health care services reflected by the relationship of the health care provider and patient, Patient's perception about health care services is generally ignored due to overburdened health facilities, poor management, dissatisfied health care providers, and quick delivery of care, although it is a crucial tool for improving the quality of health care services.…”

“…Patient satisfaction has been considered a mandatory barometer to evaluate how well a healthcare system is working in a number of advanced countries such as France and Germany, however, it receives limited attention in developing countries. 1 However, less attention has been given to understanding patients' perceptions of their experiences and how these perceptions affect satisfaction and perceived quality, and identifying patients ' expectations of what attributes should be provided during healthcare services. 12 Improved patient care has become a priority for all health care service providers with the optimum objective of achieving a high degree of patient satisfaction, therefore Patient satisfaction is the state of pleasure or happiness that the patients experience while using a health service.…”