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How to adjust the expected waiting time to improve patient’s satisfaction?

BACKGROUND: Long waiting time in hospital leads to patient’s low satisfaction. In addition to reducing the actual waiting time (AWT), we can also improve satisfaction by adjusting the expected waiting time (EWT). Then how much can the EWT be adjusted to attribute a higher satisfaction? METHODS: This...

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Autores principales: Zhang, Hui, Ma, Wei-Min, Zhu, Jing-Jing, Wang, Li, Guo, Zhen-Jie, Chen, Xiang-Tang
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10169334/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37158912
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12913-023-09385-9
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author Zhang, Hui
Ma, Wei-Min
Zhu, Jing-Jing
Wang, Li
Guo, Zhen-Jie
Chen, Xiang-Tang
author_facet Zhang, Hui
Ma, Wei-Min
Zhu, Jing-Jing
Wang, Li
Guo, Zhen-Jie
Chen, Xiang-Tang
author_sort Zhang, Hui
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Long waiting time in hospital leads to patient’s low satisfaction. In addition to reducing the actual waiting time (AWT), we can also improve satisfaction by adjusting the expected waiting time (EWT). Then how much can the EWT be adjusted to attribute a higher satisfaction? METHODS: This study was conducted though experimental with hypothetical scenarios. A total of 303 patients who were treated by the same doctor from August 2021 to April 2022 voluntarily participated in this study. The patients were randomly divided into six groups: a control group (n = 52) and five experimental groups (n = 245). In the control group, the patients were asked their satisfaction degree regarding a communicated EWT (T(0)) and AWT (T(a)) under a hypothetical situation. In the experimental groups, in addition to the same T(0) and T(a) as the control group, the patients were also asked about their satisfaction degree with the extended communicated EWT (T(1)). Patients in five experimental groups were given T(1) values with 70, 80, 90, 100, and 110 min respectively. Patients in both control and experiment groups were asked to indicate their initial EWT, after given unfavorable information (UI) in a hypothetical situation, the experiment groups were asked to indicate their extended EWT. Each participant only participated in filling out one hypothetical scenario. 297 valid hypothetical scenarios were obtained from the 303 hypothetical scenarios given. RESULTS: The experimental groups had significant differences between the initial indicated EWT and extended indicated EWT under the effect of UI (20 [10, 30] vs. 30 [10, 50], Z = -4.086, P < 0.001). There was no significant difference in gender, age, education level and hospital visit history (χ(2) = 3.198, P = 0.270; χ(2) = 2.177, P = 0.903; χ(2) = 3.988, P = 0.678; χ(2) = 3.979, P = 0.264) in extended indicated EWT. As for patient’s satisfaction, compared with the control group, significant differences were found when T(1) = 80 min (χ(2) = 13.511, P = 0.004), T(1) = 90 min (χ(2) = 12.207, P = 0.007) and T(1) = 100 min (χ(2) = 12.941, P = 0.005). When T(1) = 90 min, which is equal to the T(a), 69.4% (34/49) of the patients felt “very satisfied”, this proportion is not only significantly higher than that of the control group (34/ 49 vs. 19/52, χ(2) = 10.916, P = 0.001), but also the highest among all groups. When T(1) = 100 min (10 min longer than T(a)), 62.5% (30/48) of the patients felt “very satisfied”, it is significantly higher than that of the control group (30/ 48 vs. 19/52, χ(2) = 6.732, P = 0.009). When T(1) = 80 min (10 min shorter than T(a)), 64.8% (35/54) of the patients felt “satisfied”, it is significantly higher than that of the control group (35/ 54 vs. 17/52, χ(2) = 10.938, P = 0.001). However, no significant difference was found when T(1) = 70 min (χ(2) = 7.747, P = 0.052) and T(1) = 110 min (χ(2) = 4.382, P = 0.223). CONCLUSIONS: Providing UI prompts can extend the EWT. When the extended EWT is closer to the AWT, the patient’s satisfaction level can be improved higher. Therefore, medical institutions can adjust the EWT of patient’s through UI release according to the AWT of hospitals to improve patient’s satisfaction. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12913-023-09385-9.
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spelling pubmed-101693342023-05-11 How to adjust the expected waiting time to improve patient’s satisfaction? Zhang, Hui Ma, Wei-Min Zhu, Jing-Jing Wang, Li Guo, Zhen-Jie Chen, Xiang-Tang BMC Health Serv Res Research BACKGROUND: Long waiting time in hospital leads to patient’s low satisfaction. In addition to reducing the actual waiting time (AWT), we can also improve satisfaction by adjusting the expected waiting time (EWT). Then how much can the EWT be adjusted to attribute a higher satisfaction? METHODS: This study was conducted though experimental with hypothetical scenarios. A total of 303 patients who were treated by the same doctor from August 2021 to April 2022 voluntarily participated in this study. The patients were randomly divided into six groups: a control group (n = 52) and five experimental groups (n = 245). In the control group, the patients were asked their satisfaction degree regarding a communicated EWT (T(0)) and AWT (T(a)) under a hypothetical situation. In the experimental groups, in addition to the same T(0) and T(a) as the control group, the patients were also asked about their satisfaction degree with the extended communicated EWT (T(1)). Patients in five experimental groups were given T(1) values with 70, 80, 90, 100, and 110 min respectively. Patients in both control and experiment groups were asked to indicate their initial EWT, after given unfavorable information (UI) in a hypothetical situation, the experiment groups were asked to indicate their extended EWT. Each participant only participated in filling out one hypothetical scenario. 297 valid hypothetical scenarios were obtained from the 303 hypothetical scenarios given. RESULTS: The experimental groups had significant differences between the initial indicated EWT and extended indicated EWT under the effect of UI (20 [10, 30] vs. 30 [10, 50], Z = -4.086, P < 0.001). There was no significant difference in gender, age, education level and hospital visit history (χ(2) = 3.198, P = 0.270; χ(2) = 2.177, P = 0.903; χ(2) = 3.988, P = 0.678; χ(2) = 3.979, P = 0.264) in extended indicated EWT. As for patient’s satisfaction, compared with the control group, significant differences were found when T(1) = 80 min (χ(2) = 13.511, P = 0.004), T(1) = 90 min (χ(2) = 12.207, P = 0.007) and T(1) = 100 min (χ(2) = 12.941, P = 0.005). When T(1) = 90 min, which is equal to the T(a), 69.4% (34/49) of the patients felt “very satisfied”, this proportion is not only significantly higher than that of the control group (34/ 49 vs. 19/52, χ(2) = 10.916, P = 0.001), but also the highest among all groups. When T(1) = 100 min (10 min longer than T(a)), 62.5% (30/48) of the patients felt “very satisfied”, it is significantly higher than that of the control group (30/ 48 vs. 19/52, χ(2) = 6.732, P = 0.009). When T(1) = 80 min (10 min shorter than T(a)), 64.8% (35/54) of the patients felt “satisfied”, it is significantly higher than that of the control group (35/ 54 vs. 17/52, χ(2) = 10.938, P = 0.001). However, no significant difference was found when T(1) = 70 min (χ(2) = 7.747, P = 0.052) and T(1) = 110 min (χ(2) = 4.382, P = 0.223). CONCLUSIONS: Providing UI prompts can extend the EWT. When the extended EWT is closer to the AWT, the patient’s satisfaction level can be improved higher. Therefore, medical institutions can adjust the EWT of patient’s through UI release according to the AWT of hospitals to improve patient’s satisfaction. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12913-023-09385-9. BioMed Central 2023-05-08 /pmc/articles/PMC10169334/ /pubmed/37158912 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12913-023-09385-9 Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research
Zhang, Hui
Ma, Wei-Min
Zhu, Jing-Jing
Wang, Li
Guo, Zhen-Jie
Chen, Xiang-Tang
How to adjust the expected waiting time to improve patient’s satisfaction?
title How to adjust the expected waiting time to improve patient’s satisfaction?
title_full How to adjust the expected waiting time to improve patient’s satisfaction?
title_fullStr How to adjust the expected waiting time to improve patient’s satisfaction?
title_full_unstemmed How to adjust the expected waiting time to improve patient’s satisfaction?
title_short How to adjust the expected waiting time to improve patient’s satisfaction?
title_sort how to adjust the expected waiting time to improve patient’s satisfaction?
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10169334/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37158912
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12913-023-09385-9
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