relationship between management style and social responsibility at Tehran hospitals

Nowadays, the success of a hospital administration is not only subject to taking care of hospital internal processes but also identifying the hospital concerns about external processes; that is, the social responsibility of hospitals. It seems one of the factors influencing the acceptance of social responsibility is the management style. This study is going to investigate the relationship between management style and social responsibility at Tehran hospitals. This cross-sectional study was conducted in 2011. The study population included hospitals and academic medical centers affiliated to Tehran and Shahid Beheshti Universies of Medical Sciences; as well as private hospitals in Tehran [n=94]. Census method was employed for collecting data. Tools for collecting data included two questionnaires related to determining the management style and assessing the social responsibility score of hospitals. The collected data were analyzed by descriptive parameters, independent t-test and Chi-square test using SPSS software version 16. The mean score of social responsibility in the studied hospitals was 3.46. The mean score for marketplace, leadership and internal processes, environmental, workplace, and community policies were 3.69, 3.64, 3.4, 3.38 and 3.22, respectively. There was no significant difference between social responsibility score and type of ownership [P>0.05]. The mean scores of management styles were not significantly different between public and private hospitals [P>0.05]. Social accountability level of the studied hospitals was evaluated as average. To promote the social responsibility level, it is recommended appropriate measures to be taken for the policies of social responsibility, particularly in workplace and society and country policies

[Desired attributes of outpatient services from the perspective of patients: using a choice- based conjoint analysis technique]

Patients' perception of various aspects of health services could provide useful insights to improve health services. In the present study the technique of Choice- Based Conjoint Analysis [CBCA] was used to elicit patients' views on desired attributes of outpatient services. Five attributes related to outpatient services provided by hospital clinics, were surveyed. They included appointment making, waiting time, forming medical records, and presence of medical students and other patients in the examination room. There were 200 patients selected through convenient sampling method. Data were gathered via structured interviews and analyzed by logit regression model. The three main attributes preferred by respondents were: no presence of other patients [57%], appointment making [17%], and forming medical records [15%]. The scenario with maximum utility consisted of the following: telephone appointments, having medical records, no presence of medical students and other patients in the examination room, and the maximum waiting time of half an hour. The sequence of the priorities preferred by the outpatients was found to be firstly, examination by consultants in private, secondly, telephone appointments, and finally, formation of medical records. CBCA could be a potentially useful technique for eliciting the preferences of health service users