What Do Patients Want? Technical Quality Versus Functional Quality: A Literature Review for Plastic Surgeons

Abstract

While most surgeons are well aware of outcomes studies and quality assessment based on technical quality (TQ) measurements, there has been little attention given in the plastic surgery literature to the discussion of functional quality (FQ)-the process by which a health care service is delivered, as opposed to the actual procedure itself. Most patients judge the quality of their hospital experience based on FQ issues. They use their assessment of FQ to secondarily infer a judgment of the TQ level of a surgeon or facility. Surgeons, conversely, typically rate their own success with purely technical quality measures, paying little attention to FQ. This article reviews the relevant service-quality medical literature and introduces plastic surgeons to the importance of differentiating between TQ and FQ. Important FQ assessment techniques are reviewed. Implications for the plastic surgeon are discussed.

A Systematic Review of the Factors that Patients Use to Choose their Surgeon

“…In a study of 1329 Dutch patients who underwent elective surgical procedures from 2005 to 2006, Djis-Elsinga et al [30] reported that patients held hospital reputation (69.1 %) and hospital atmosphere (63.3 %) to be the most important factors in selecting a location for surgical care, even more than information on surgical success and adverse outcomes ( Table 3). Plastic surgery literature suggests that patients wanted their hospital experience to be pleasant, and patients actually have used nonclinical hospital attributes to approximate hospital quality [23]. An integral part of a hospital's atmosphere was the interactions between staff and patients.…”

Designing quality of care – contributions from parents

“…Functional quality is important to patients and can influence their perceptions of technical quality. For example, a patient who has difficulty parking may be irritated when meeting the doctor, and therefore, less eager to follow the doctor's recommendations despite the physician's excellence in diagnostics or surgery (Fiala ). Patients often consider functional quality, whereas health care professionals tend to focus on technical quality (Fiala ).…”

A Conceptual Paper on SERVQUAL-Framework for Assessing Quality of Internet of Things (IoT) Services

“…Technical quality is ultimate result what customers acquire while functionality is the process, the way; the procedure customer gets the service delivery. This functional aspect of service quality contains particular nature (Fiala, 2012). To assess the service quality for automated self-service technology, functionality explored the level of easiness and convenience to use the technology, how much this automated system is reliable, and possessing the alertness towards the user (J.-S. C. Lin & Hsieh, 2011).…”