Patients’ experience on complaint handling; a comparison between Complaint Committees and Disciplinary Boards.

Background: Handling patient complaints about health care issues is important. However, many patients who lodge a complaint are dissatisfied with the way their complaints are dealt with. In the Netherlands, there are two institutions to lodge a complaint: the Complaints Committee and the Disciplinary board. The complaints committee is characterized by its accessibility and makes suggestions for improvements in health care organizations, the Disciplinary Board is characterized by its high status and issues a verdict on the accused health care professional. The aim of this study is to compare these two procedures from the patient perspective and examine what kind of procedure is more satisfying for patients. Methods: To compare these two procedures, a questionnaire survey was distributed by five disciplinary boards and 65 complaint committees; 1185 patients who lodged a complaint received a questionnaire. In total, 460 completed the questionnaire about their experiences after the complaints procedures (response 39%). Results: Our preliminary results demonstrate that there is no difference in patients’ satisfaction with the procedure itself between the disciplinary boards and complaints committees (75 vs. 75%). However, lodging a complaint at a disciplinary board leads to more patients’ being satisfied with the outcome of the verdict (56 vs. 46%). It shows that patients who lodged a complaint at a disciplinary board say more often that justice has been done (52 vs. 43%). Patients who lodged a complaint at a complaints committee say more often that the organization made improvements due to the verdict (24 vs. 11%). Conclusion: Surprisingly, the more formal procedure of complaint handling, that is the procedure of the disciplinary board, resulted in more patients’ that feel justice has been done. Complaints committees, the less formal procedure, seem to contribute more to improving health care. In the presentation, we will explain the underlying factors of our findings