Authors (including presenting author) :
Wong ELY, Cheung AWL, Ma JCH, Lau JCH, Yeoh EK
Affiliation :
Centre for Health Systems & Policy Research, JC School of Public Health and Primary Care, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Introduction :
Providing a positive patient experience is crucial for public healthcare processes and outcomes. This is evident during the COVID-19 pandemic where healthcare resources are limited. Efficient healthcare pathways and high quality of care stem from positive patient experiences. Therefore, a territory-wide patient experience survey on inpatient services was introduced in 2010 in collaboration with the Hospital Authority (HA). The fifth round of inpatient survey was conducted in 2019-2020.
Objectives :
The study aimed to explore patients’ experience by adopting a locally-validated tool –Hong Kong Inpatient Experience Questionnaire (HKIEQ), and to identify areas for improvement in inpatient services in Hong Kong (HK).
Methodology :
A territory-wide cross-sectional survey was conducted among those who were discharged from any one of the 27 selected HA hospitals between October 2019 and April 2020, using the HKIEQ. Respondents must be HK residents, aged ≥ 18, have stayed at least one night in participating hospitals, contactable within two weeks after discharge, and be able to speak Cantonese, English or Mandarin. Those who were day cases or admitted under Psychiatry, Obstetrics, Dentistry, Hospice, Infirmary, Pediatrics, or Intensive Care were excluded from the study. The HKIEQ consists of 39 evaluative items under 6 care aspects to evaluate the process from admission to leaving the clinic. Responses to evaluative items are converted to a score on a scale from 0 (most negative) to 10 (most positive).
Result & Outcome :
A total of 9,800 patients responded to the survey with a response rate of 40%. The survey revealed that the overall experience on hospital inpatient services was rated 7 or above by 92% of respondents. The mean score of overall patient experience was 8.2, an increase from 8.1 in 2017. In view of the pandemic, aspects such as availability of hand sanitation and cleanliness were highly rated (score ≥ 8.5). Aspects related to hospital staff, such as the patient’s confidence towards doctors, nurses and allied health professionals were also highly rated (score ≥ 9.0). Other highly rated aspects included patient privacy, medication explanation and discharge procedure (score ≥ 9.0). Meanwhile, aspects such as patient’s decision involvement, acquiring information on post-consultation contact yielded lower scores (score ≤ 3.0). These findings demonstrated the importance of the patient experience amid the ongoing pandemic, and the HKIEQ can provide valuable feedback on the performance of specific modules within the healthcare system. Further studies are required to strengthen understanding on aspects that needed improvement.
