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Published on: February 19, 2021

Quality variation and its impact on costs and satisfaction: evidence from the QIDS study

John W Peabody1, Jhiedon Florentino, Riti Shimkhada

  • 1Global Health Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94105, USA. Peabody@psg.ucsf.edu

Medical Care
|December 17, 2009
PubMed

Insights

Improving hospital care quality shows a U-shaped link with costs and patient satisfaction. Initial quality gains may lower expenses, but further improvements can increase charges while still boosting satisfaction.

Area of Science:

  • Health Services Research
  • Hospital Management
  • Patient Experience

Background:

  • Improving inpatient hospital care quality is a key goal across various healthcare settings.
  • The interplay between quality improvements, healthcare costs, and patient satisfaction remains inadequately understood.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the relationship between the quality of inpatient pediatric care and associated hospital charges.
  • To examine the association between healthcare quality and patient satisfaction in district hospitals.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized data from the Quality Improvement Demonstration Study (QIDS) involving 30 district hospitals in the Philippines.
  • Assessed quality of care using physician-completed vignettes and collected patient satisfaction data via exit surveys (PSQ-18) from parents of 974 children.
  • Gathered information on hospital charges, services, and payment sources during inpatient stays.

Main Results:

  • A nonlinear, U-shaped relationship was observed between quality of care and hospital charges.
  • Initially, quality improvements correlated with decreased hospital charges; beyond a certain threshold, further quality enhancements led to increased charges.
  • A similar nonlinear association was found between higher quality of care and patient satisfaction.

Conclusions:

  • Targeting low-quality providers may offer a strategy for reducing healthcare costs.
  • Investments in improving healthcare quality are likely to enhance patient satisfaction, even if they lead to increased hospital charges.
Abstract

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