Patient perception of quality of care and service delivery in emergency departments in Gauteng: a case study of one public hospital

Quality of health care delivered in the public sector remains a major challenge with diminishing resources to meet the increasing health care demands. Improvements in quality health care are identified in the Department of Health’s strategic framework as a key challenge. In order to improve quality, one needs to measure it. The patients’ views are important in identifying what is important to them. Inexpensive, easy to collect metrics need to be developed to measure quality of care. The study investigated perceptions of patients as a reflection of quality of care provided. The study also determined the key success factors in quality care in emergency departments and priorities of quality of care for improvement. A prospective study was conducted using one of Gauteng hospitals’ emergency departments as a case study. A structured questionnaire based on an overall care index focusing on specific dimensions of patients’ experience with health care was used to collect the data. Quantitative analysis was done using the Epi Info statistical package and the results summarised in frequency diagrams and tables. The findings indicate that waiting time is a major factor in perception of quality of health care. Although other hospitality issues in health care are important to patients, the degree to which they affect perception of quality of health care is difficult to determine because of the overwhelming influence of waiting time. It is recommended that priorities in addressing what users really want from health care should concentrate on strategies to shorten the waiting time. It is further recommended that a similar study be carried out in future once the waiting times have been improved considerably thus eliminating its excessive influence. This may highlight other variables important to the patients that may need to be improved in order to improve quality of care.Dr. Susan Jennifer Armstron