What Hospital Characteristics Influence the Patient Experiences

Abstract

Objective This study examines hospital characteristics associated with patient experience and discusses implications for public hospitals in Korea. Methods Data were obtained from the 2017 Medical Service Patient Experience Survey that were conducted by the Ministry of Health and Welfare and Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service, and the information about hospital characteristics provided by Korea Health Industry Development Institute. A total of 87 hospitals were studied for having association of their characteristics with 6 patient experience domains (i.e., nurse services, doctor services, medication, environment, patient's right, and overall experience). Data were analyzed by descriptive statistics, univariate analysis and multivariable regression analysis using bootstrapping. Results Most of the hospitals received good scores on patient experience. Compared to private hospitals, mean scores of patient experience of public hospitals were not statistically significantly different. However, public hospitals had significantly lower profitability than private counterparts. While most of hospital characteristics did not show significant association with patient experience, nurse staffing level did have significant positive association with overall experience. In addition, hospitals that had more high-tech equipment, such as computed tomography (CT), were associated with higher overall experience scores. Conclusions It is suggested that securing nursing staff and medical equipment may be an important factor affecting the assessment of patient experience and may also be an important factor in the selection of medical institutions Keywords: hospital characteristics, patient experience, nurse staffing level