Assessment of the Quality of Public Hospital Healthcare Services by using SERVQUAL.

Hospital healthcare service quality measurement represents an important approach for advancing healthcare systems. This paper presents preliminary results of a research on the quality of healthcare services provided by a large, public, university hospital centre in Croatia, based on the Gaps Model of Service Quality and the SERVQUAL instrument. The importance of particular service quality dimensions was analyzed, as well as the gaps between patient perceptions and expectations of healthcare services provided by 18 departments of the university hospital centre. Results revealed the gaps that exist at the level of the university hospital centre as a whole, showing the size variations in different service quality dimensions. The management of the university hospital centre should improve healthcare service quality in all dimensions by paying particular attention to the 'responsiveness' and 'tangibility', where the largest gap was identified.

THE ROLE AND PROMOTION OF NURSING.

Nurses have great influence on health care system. As they face many different states of affairs nowadays, it is necessary to find a way to promote and enable their profession. The significant interaction between nurses and patients and other medical professions makes them a powerful marketing tool of a medical institution. Therefore, the promotion of their image is necessary because of authorizing their professional status. There are numerous ways of creating and improving their image. Some of them include implementation of marketing principles and the Internet as well. This paper presents the web page promotion of nursing, i.e. the Nursing and Related Professions of the Sestre milosrdnice University Hospital Center homepage, as a tool of nursing promotion.

Quality management: patients reflections on health care at outpatient clinic of internal medicine department.

Middle and older age group relative share in the community permanently grows. Those are commonly burdened with several chronic health conditions or elevated incidence of acute ones and in more frequent need for consulting health services. In the era of modern technical medicine, it is important to increase quality of services particularly patients orientated. Department of Internal Medicine developed questionnaire to assess reflections on medical care from the receiver of medical services point of view. Sample was formed from individuals that visited outpatient triage Unit (OTU) and voluntary enrolled, during period April 1-August 31, 2008 for any medical reason. Study population structure had similarly equally of both genders, socio-economical background, and was in age range 18-87. Questionnaire was developed by team of experienced personnel covering satisfaction on received medical care. There were 279 returned formulary in a sample of 6700 patients (4.18%). Patients visited OTU chiefly on behalf medical condition secondary to address of residency, followed by personal choice, on advice given by general practitioner, by emergency transportation services, or just due to earlier experiences. Regarding provided medical care extent, 4/5 of patients were examined in lesser than 2 hours, while total workup lasted mostly for 2-4, followed by over four. Over half of patients were moderate toward highly satisfied with provided medical information, personnel communication style and general reflection on all services while being in the Department premises. Astonishing proportion of patients (93%) was satisfied with positive personnel communication. Integration of patients' self-perceived reports about medical services in organizing process is inevitable for augmenting content and at the same time valuable for developing overall quality of treatment. Communication excellence is of premier importance and unavoidable for giving additional positive effect to remain health status or to ease the healing process of individual and their families.