[Patient satisfaction--a potential cornerstone of hospital management]

Hospitals consider themselves to be exposed to intense competition for patient admissions. Yet their competitive performance is only rarely assessed in terms of patient satisfaction.

Following agreed guidelines, formulated on the basis of interdisciplinary research, the University Clinical Centre (2,500 beds, 10,000 employees) of Schleswig Holstein, Germany's most northerly Bundesland, developed and distributed standardized questionnaires on patient satisfaction and collected them after completion.

18,711 completed questionnaires were collected from a population of 71,000 treated patients (rate of return: 26%; males 50,6%; females 49,4%). Two-thirds of admissions were elective whereas the remainder were emergencies. The quarterly evaluation revealed quality of food and cleanliness as the main areas of complaint. Patients' dissatisfactions was the greater the longer the stay in hospital. Other differences between patients on statutory or private health insurance, respectively, were voiced regarding "respectful treatment" and "professional ability" (especially by private patients). Furthermore, patient satisfaction related to the duration of doctors' rotation (i.e. how long they were on duty), satisfaction being greater the longer the period of rotation.

The study has provided information on patient satisfaction as a measure of effective hospital management.