Application of two-step clustering analysis on inpatient satisfaction analysis / 中华医院管理杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To analyze the differences and influencing factors of inpatient satisfaction on hospitals of different types in different regions two years following implementation of the National Healthcare Improvement Initiative.Methods Data of hospitals and inpatient satisfaction survey results were collected from the a third-party evaluation of the National Healthcare Improvement Initiative, and analyzed in a two-step clustering model.This effort aims at learning the subjective feelings of inpatients and impacts of the objective indicators of medical resources allocation on inpatient satisfaction.The analysis helps identify indicators to be included into the clustering model and their correlation with such satisfaction.Results The two-step clustering rounded hospitals into four categories based on the inpatient overall satisfaction.Gaps were found among different categories of hospitals in terms of types of hospitals, location, affiliation and healthcare resources allocation.The inpatient overall satisfaction varied with these indictors.Among the category with the highest inpatient overall satisfaction, 100% were general hospitals, most of which in eastern area(52.38%),and local hospitals(50.00%).Hospitals in this category feature larger scales and stronger medical techniques.The category with the lowest inpatient overall satisfaction were mostly hospitals located in western regions(65.52%), maternal and child hospitals(41.38%)and local hospitals (89.65%).Most of these hospitals were large in scale, but their medical techniques and resources fell behind their eastern counterparts.The strongest correlation with inpatient overall satisfaction was medical behavior(r=0.95), while the weakest was the medical resources allocation(r<0.30).Conclusions There are gaps of inpatient overall satisfactions among different types of hospitals located in different regions. Patients′subjective perceptions and medical resources allocation affected their overall satisfactions.The non-medical services were important factors towards patient satisfaction.