Monitoring and reducing patient dissatisfaction: a case study of an Iranian public hospital

Patients' dissatisfaction with hospital services is a major indicator for the assessment of healthcare quality. This paper proposes an innovative framework to measure and decrease patient dissatisfaction with hospital services. First, a validated and verified SERVQUAL-based questionnaire is proposed to be distributed among patients. Then, according to the collected data, the level of dissatisfaction is monitored by deploying a p-chart and a Demerit chart. Finally, in order to identify long-term improvement opportunities, an improvement index and Pareto chart have been exploited. The usefulness of the proposed framework is illustrated by the application on a case study in a public hospital of Iran. The results revealed that both the Demerit chart and p-chart are quite competent in monitoring patients' dissatisfaction and alarming out-of-control situations. In the studied hospital, food service was found to be the critical challenge that required both immediate and long-term improvements. Nurses' criteria should receive immediate improvement while long-term efforts should be devoted to hospital environment and facilities.