Patient hospital experience and satisfaction on social media

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to show the value of open-ended narrative patient reviews on social media for elucidating aspects of hospital patient satisfaction. Design/methodology/approach Mixed methods analyses using qualitative (manual content analyses using grounded theory and algorithmic analyses using the Natural Language Toolkit) followed by quantitative analyses (negative binomial regression). Findings Health-care team communication, health-care team action orientation and patient hospital room environment are positively related to patient hospital satisfaction. Patients form their hospital satisfaction perceptions based on the three facets of their hospital stay experience. Research limitations/implications In the spirit of continuous quality improvement, periodically analyzing patient social media comments could help health-care teams understand the patient satisfaction inhibitors that they need to avoid to offer patient-centric care. Practical implications By periodically analyzing patient social media comments hospital leaders can quickly identify the gaps in their health service delivery and plug them, which could ultimately give the hospital a competitive advantage. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first studies to apply mixed methods to patient hospital review comments given freely on social media to critically understand what drives patient hospital satisfaction ratings.

Patient Satisfaction Determinants of Inpatient Healthcare

“…The results of the SEM analysis demonstrated that satisfaction with the quality of treatment provided (β = 0.538) and satisfaction with leaving the hospital (β = 0.547) were the factors that have a lower direct impact on the patient’s overall satisfaction with the healthcare provided. This is slightly contrary to many studies suggesting that the satisfaction of hospitalised patients is related to the quality of healthcare, diagnosis and treatment processes ([ 21 , 23 , 24 , 30 , 56 ]). This fact can also be explained by the results of the study by Farzianpour et al [ 16 ], who considered patient satisfaction as a cognitive response influenced by various factors.…”

“…Open narrative reviews of the patients in social media can also be an important source of information to shed light on the important aspects of patient satisfaction in hospitals. This aspect was verified in the research study by Chakraborty and Church [ 29 , 30 , 31 ]. This is a unique study, where the authors used the qualitative and quantitative methods to evaluate the comments on the reviews of hospitalisations of the respondents that were freely made public on the social networks.…”

“…Many studies also point to caution in an interpretation of the findings from the comparisons of the different types of hospitals as an inconsistent comparative basis for patient satisfaction assessment may lead to the misleading illustrations of the differences in patient satisfaction [ 43 ]. This also draws attention to the role of social media in this field with hospitalisations and their importance not only for health care providers themselves but also for health policymakers, as confirmed by studies by Rai [ 34 ], Chakraborty and Church [ 30 ], Geletta [ 33 ], Alkazemi et al [ 32 ] and others. Social networks can provide important information and, thus, complement research initiated by the research institutions or the health insurance companies, the health facilities and so on [ 35 ].…”

A Cross-sectional Study of Antecedents and Consequence of Panic Buying Behavior: The Moderating Effect of COVID-19 Rumors

“…In marketing, experience has been considered a key concept that has relationships with other concepts such as brand loyalty, 22 , 23 satisfaction, 24 , 25 and brand equity. 26 , 27 Customer experience is a customer’s cognitive, emotional, behavioral, sensorial, and social responses to a firm’s offerings during the customer’s entire purchase journey.…”