Quality improvement project to assess patient satisfaction towards outpatient services of a tertiary care teaching hospital, South India - A cross-sectional study

Background: Patient satisfaction survey is a valuable tool to measure the outcomes of care rendered by hospitals. Outpatient department (OPD) is a very crucial area of any hospital services as huge number of patient's visits this area for clinical services. Information about quality of services in OPD will serve two purposes, i.e., identifying areas of improvement in the services offered and highlighting the need for corrective actions. Patient satisfaction is the key determinant for assessing the quality of patient care and is the desired outcome of every hospital. The present study was conducted to measure the levels of patient satisfaction and to ascertain any service gaps in OPD of a tertiary care teaching hospital, Mysuru, India. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional, descriptive study was conducted among 600 patients using a structured questionnaire for assessing the levels of patient satisfaction. Results: The overall satisfaction rate in this study was 97.2%, with major satisfiers being clinical care provided by doctors and nursing staffs and few patients were not satisfied with cleanliness of toilets and medications' availability. Conclusion: Patient satisfaction survey may be a good audit tool and it should be used to improve the standard of services. According to the patient's opinion, the study showed good satisfaction with respect to reception and registration services, physical facilities, doctor's services, nursing services, laboratory services, and pharmacy services. Few deficient areas are identified in terms of service delivery and the same will be bridged as early as possible to achieve universal patient satisfaction.