The quality of health care and patient satisfaction: an exploratory investigation of the 5Qs model at some Egyptian and Jordanian medical clinics

To examine the major factors affecting patients' perception of cumulative satisfaction and to address the question whether patients in Egypt and Jordan evaluate quality of health care similarly or differently. A conceptual model including behavioural dimensions of patient-physician relationships and patient satisfaction has been developed. As the empirical research setting, this study concerns three hospitals in Egypt and Jordan. The survey instrument in a questionnaire form was designed to achieve the research objectives. A total of 48 items (attributes) of the newly developed five quality dimensions were identified to be the most relevant. A total of 224 complete and usable questionnaires were received from the in-patients. Hospital C has above-average total and dimensional qualities and patients are the most satisfied in accordance with all dimensions of services. Hospitals A and B have under-average total qualities as the majority of patients are not satisfied with services. Comparing hospitals A and B, in the majority of dimensions (with the exception of Q5), the quality in hospital B is higher than in hospital A. Patients' satisfaction with different service quality dimensions is correlated with their willingness to recommend the hospital to others. A cure to improve the quality for health-care services can be an application of total relationship management and the 5Qs model together with customer orientation strategy. The result can be used by the hospitals to reengineer and redesign creatively their quality management processes and the future direction of their more effective health-care quality strategies. In this research a study is described involving a new instrument and a new method which assure a reasonable level of relevance, validity and reliability, while being explicitly change-oriented. This study argues that a patient's satisfaction is a cumulative construct, summing satisfaction with five different qualities (5Qs) of the hospital: quality of object, processes, infrastructure, interaction, and atmosphere.