Document Type : Original Article
Authors
1 Assistant Professor, Health Services Management, Health Management and Economics Research Center, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran
2 MSc, Health Services Management, Research Center for Health Services Management, Institute for Futures Studies in Health, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran
3 MSc, Health Services Management, Student Research Committee, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran
4 MSc, Health Services Management, Research Center for Modeling in Health, Institute for Futures Studies in Health, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran
5 MSc, Health Services Management, Medical Informatics Research Center, Institute for Futures Studies in Health, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran
Abstract
Introduction: nowadays, complaints handling is considered as a necessary part of healthcare systems for enhancing patients' satisfaction. The present study is to determine the state of the complaints handling of the visitors of Isfahan educational hospitals in order to identify the challenges available in this process.Methods: the method of the study is descriptive and its design is retrospective cross-sectional. The research environment is Isfahan educational hospitals among which two hospitals were selected for the study; one of them was a subspecialty hospital and the other was a general one. The population of the study includes the complaint cases of the visitors of the hospitals' complaint unit in 2012. In one hospital, there were 1203 cases and in the other there were 125 ones. To collect the data, a checklist, whose face and content validities were confirmed, was used. The data were extracted from the cases and using a frequency table created by Excel software program was described.Results: based on the results obtained from the study, it can be claimed that in one of the hospitals, the most cases of complaint were about the quality of services (63.6%) and public as well as welfare affairs of the hospital (43.1%). The complaints about the medical staff (45.45%) and administrative staff (54.5%) had the most proportions. In the other hospital, the proportion of the complaining the medical staff had been increasing during the year, however the total number of the complaints had been decreasing. After the medical staff, nursing staff (39.5%) assigned the second rank of complaint proportion in the hospital to itself.Conclusion: the results obtained from the study can be as an experience for reforming the future performance of hospitals. In general, the results of the complained individuals in the hospital A indicate that the most proportion of the complaints was about the physicians and learners and the least proportion was about the technicians and experts of anesthesia and operating room. It seems that the reason for these results is first the physicians' and learners' unawareness of patients' bill of rights. This bill of rights should be considered as important in teaching learners as other scientific contents. In the hospital A, the reason for complaining the physicians had not been recorded, which by recording them, we can be aware of the weaknesses available in this regard and do appropriate deeds to improve them. But, in general, the quality of services and public as well as welfare issues are the topics considered as important in this research.
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