A rural primary health care service in Israel--some measures of utilization and satisfaction

Measures of use and satisfaction within a rural health service in Israel were surveyed in a study of the anonymous responses to a questionnaire from 110 mothers of children 14 years of age and younger in two agricultural villages. The majority of mothers expressed satisfaction with the health service, although there were notable reservations about the availability of certain services. Differences were detected between the reasons mothers recorded for initiating contacts with the medical team and the actual day-to-day experience of the health team members. Satisfaction with the service was associated with the length of the waiting time to see the physician, the perceived sufficiency of time the physician spent on the examination, and awareness that the physician was on call after clinic hours for the survey population. It was also found that the combined hospital use for the populations of 10 surrounding villages was almost twice that of the study villages. The findings are discussed in the context of both the immediate impact on the health service studied and the wider implications for primary health care in Israel. These include an identification of the health service with the physician and the potential medical and economic benefits of continued responsibility for care after clinic hours.