TITLE:
Customer Satisfaction at Galen House, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, 2019
AUTHORS:
Munekayi Padingani, Nothando Dube, Simbarashe Chiwanda, Notion Gombe, Gerald Shambira, Ms T. Juru, Peter Nsubuga, Mufuta Tshimanga
KEYWORDS:
Patient Satisfactory Survey, Private Sector, Patient Waiting Time, Patient Privacy, Patient Confidentiality, Patient Affordability
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Epidemiology,
Vol.11 No.1,
February
4,
2021
ABSTRACT: Introduction: Healthcare industries have seen recent movements towards continuous quality improvement. The healthcare regulators shifted towards a market-driven approach of turning patient satisfaction surveys into a quality improvement tool for overall organizational performance. Data concerning this has remained limited in private sector in Zimbabwe. Thus, this study aims to determine patients and health workers perception about health services offered at Galen house in order to enable the institution to come up with evidence-based interventions to improve the quality of healthcare services. Methods: This was a descriptive cross sectional study. It was a mixed qualitative and quantitative study involving data collected from patients/ guardians and health workers at Galen House from January 2019 to March of the same year. Data was analysed using Microsoft Excel version 2013. Results: There were a total of 270 patients involved into the study. 173 (64%) perceived the waiting before services as good. 213 (79%) perceived the total waiting time as not long. Privacy 215 (80%) and confidentiality 223 (83%) perceived as good by patients. More than 50% of health workers perceived health services offered at Galen House as good. Staff attitude was perceived as good 191 (71%) by patients in contrary to some instance by health workers. Affordability of services was perceived as manageable. Conclusion: The total waiting time was perceived as not long at Galen House. Staff attitude was perceived differently by patients and health workers. Improving those two will contribute to more utilization of services by the community.