An evaluation of hospitals’ outpatient service quality from patients’ perspective in Shenzhen: A cross- sectional study

Background: Outpatient services plays a large and critical part in China’s hospitals. Quality improvements can be achieved through patients’ perspective, especially the patient experience. There is no consensus on assessment methods and procedures on patient to provide fair and accurate assessments of patient experience. This study was aimed to evaluate hospitals’ outpatient service quality from patients’ perspective. Methods: : This study evaluates hospitals’ outpatient service quality from patients’ perspective among 1876 outpatients in 13 Shenzhen tertiary hospitals from June to July, 2019 using a self-established questionnaire.Relative importance of the quality indicators, perceived and expected quality of service rated by outpatients were obtained by analytic hierarchy process. Factors associated with patients’ experience was examined by optimal scaling regression. Results: : Assurance was most expected, the dimensions patient perceived best and worst were Assurance and Safety , and the widest two gaps exist in Reliability and Empathy . Negative gaps were found existing in all dimensions and indicators. Background characteristics and hospital natural were found significantly different in each dimension of outpatient service quality. Overall impression and willingness to recommend both significantly correlate with age, education level, visits frequency, source of cost,region and visiting forms. Conclusions: : Our research evaluated outpatient service quality from the outpatients’ perspective and focused on their experiences. The indicator system passed reliability and validity test, and its findings are partly consistent with many satisfaction surveys done in China. The overall patient experience in our study is not ideal, but overall impression and willingness to recommend are high. Service quality can be improved according to the relative importance of each indicator, patient expectation and perception, and associated factors. Patient experience should be used for hospital managers to drive patient-centered care.