Healthcare Administration Capstone Assignment Assignment is Broken down over 10 weeks. Please see attached for details and dates. Would like help with the entire paper so, I need one awesome tutor t

Background Template

Rhonda Scott

A Capstone Presented in Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree

Master of Healthcare Administration

PURDUE UNIVERSITY GLOBAL

June 2019

Background

Patient satisfaction is an outcome that is desirable by the management of healthcare facilities. Patient satisfaction influences good reputation of a healthcare facility. It is an element that will make a customer to make a comeback or recommend a person seeking the service to go to the specific hospital, Woodard (2012). From the perspective of most patients, healthcare centers are unfriendly and very scary places to be. It is the management of the healthcare facilities together with the care givers who will make this perspective to change positively. The negative perspective about the healthcare centers can be changed through good patient experience which means achieving patient satisfaction. Nazarko (2007)

This research intends to show how healthcare services can be improved though patient satisfaction. Management and other stakeholders should strive to have patient satisfaction when patients seek services in their facilities. According to Mair and Whitten (2000), the management of healthcare facilities should inculcate the culture of customer satisfaction so as to attain high levels of patient satisfaction and consequently, high performance. Woodard (2012) states that there are two elements which constitute customer satisfaction, expectation and perception. It is necessary for care givers as well as the management of these facilities to understand the two elements in order to realize patient satisfaction.

The general problem is to find out the influences on patient satisfaction in healthcare facilities . Healthcare facilities strive to meet the desires of their patients at the same time maintain quality standards that are set by regulatory bodies. There are number of factors that determine satisfaction of patients when seeking healthcare services. Patient satisfaction is defined by Peck (2011) as the reaction a patient has towards the healthcare experienced in a given healthcare facility.

The level of patient satisfaction is principal indicator of measuring quality of service delivery. Mair and Whitten (2000) opine that patient satisfaction is purely on the dimension of service and not on the dimension of technicality of quality of the service given. Most patients have less problem when it comes to the technicality of the quality as they feel they do not have technical capacity to judge. Therefore, patient satisfaction is based on the quality of healthcare services given.

The demographic factors of patient such as age, gender and socioeconomic greatly influences the response the patient give in relation to satisfaction of healthcare services received. The influences of patient satisfaction affect the utilization of the healthcare services in hospitals. For better performance and fully patient satisfaction, healthcare service providers ought to understand well the factors that influence patient response when it comes to quality service offered. This research will therefore seek to investigate the influencers on patient satisfaction in healthcare facilities.

The specific problem is to find out the factors which make patients to perceive a healthcare service as satisfactory when the patients seek services at healthcare facilities . For this study to be successful and explore fully the influencers on patient satisfaction in healthcare facilities, the research will be guided by three specific research statements. The study will seek to explore the demographic factors of a physician towards patient satisfaction. The second statement is to probe how the demographic factors of patient perceive healthcare service satisfaction and finally find out the geographical location of healthcare facility on how it influences patient satisfaction. Exploring these statements will give an insight of factors which make patients to perceive a healthcare service as satisfactory or unsatisfactory .

The purpose of this study is to research and come up with recommendations that are fact based on factors which influence patient satisfaction in healthcare facilities . The research, since it based on healthcare services, will be beneficial to three groups. The first group is healthcare facilities. Through the implementation of recommendations the study will come up with, the study will enable healthcare facilities to make short term and long term plans that will aim at improving patient satisfaction.

The second group the research aim at benefitting is the academia. The findings of the study will be useful to academics by widening knowledge on the influencers on patient satisfaction in healthcare facilities. In particular, this study will be of immense importance to researchers with interest in improving patient satisfaction since the study will be a reference source. Future researchers who may desire to probe the topic further will be able to formulate their studies based on the recommendations of this study.

Finally, the study will be of great importance to the policy makers since the findings and recommendations will constitute part of advisory opinions to patient satisfaction. The policy makers may use the recommendations to come up with long and short term policies to realize patient satisfaction on healthcare facilities.

The research addresses the following research questions.

RQ1: Which demographic factors of a physician influence patient satisfaction ?

RQ2: How does the demographic factors of patient perceive healthcare service

satisfaction?

RQ3: How the geographical location of healthcare facility influences patient satisfaction?

Bellman, G. M. ( 2001 ) Getting Things Done When You Are Not in Charge. 2d ed. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler

Cleary, D. and Edgman, S. (1997). Healthcare Quality. Incorporating Consumer Perspective. JAMA, 278, 1608-1612

Creel L., Sass, J. and Yinger, N. (2002). Client-centered quality: clients’ perspectives and barriers to receiving care. New Perspectives on Quality of Care, 13(5):385-390.

Leong, J. R . et al . ( 2005 ) ICU Program Favorably Affects Clinical and Economic Outcomes. BioMedCentral

Mair, F., & Whitten, P. (2000). Systematic review of studies of patient satisfaction with telemedicine. British Medical Journal, 320, 1517-1520

Nazarko, L , ( 2007 ) Bathing Patients with care and dignity. British Journal of Health Care Assistants. 1 (2):73-76.

Peck, B. M. ( 2011 ) Age related difference in doctor patient interaction and patient satisfaction. Curr Gerontal Geriatr Res: 137, 492-501

Woodard, L. J. et al . (2012). An innovative clerkship module focused on patients. Acad Med. Journal. 87(4):537-542