Measuring the Quality of Hospital Services in Jeddah - Case Study Example

Measuring the Quality of Hospital Services in Jeddah Name Institution Measuring the Quality of Hospital Services in Jeddah Condition of healthcare services in Jeddah Accessibility to equitable and quality healthcare services is the right of every person globally irrespective of the financial backgrounds. Besides, there is need to ensure satisfaction among the patients through improved healthcare facilities. The level of satisfaction among the consumers is the major indicator of the quality of products and services offered. Currently, the healthcare sector in Jeddah is making continuous efforts to ensure higher satisfaction among the patients. By doing so, it has been able to identify various deficiencies in the delivery of care services and develop interventions to increase satisfaction level. However, Jeddah faces the challenge of identifying a single factor that directly associates with low or high level of patients’ satisfaction (Naiaz, 2006). There are several factors involved in the satisfaction process including the demographics of patients, health conditions, the features of the care provider, technical expertise presented by the practitioners, interests in the patient oriented care, and duration of waiting. The Ministry of Health and several organizations operating the hospitals and medical services for their workers manage the healthcare services majorly. Through the years, the healthcare services in Jeddah improved especially with regard to accessibility and quality. Besides the state agencies, the private sectors also contribute greatly to ensuring access to quality healthcare. The sector operates clinics, dispensaries, and big hospitals including Soliman Fakeeh Hospital located in Jeddah. Most of these healthcare facilities operate within the cities and large municipalities, which to some extent deny those in rural areas access to the required healthcare. Like other places, Jeddah invests many resources both financial and non-financial to enhance the quality of healthcare. A recent analysis from the World Health Organization (WHO) that utilizes only five Institute of Medicine (IOM) performance indicators in measuring the healthcare systems in the 191 member states, rated the French healthcare system the best globally (World Health Organization, 2001). The other countries following France include Italy, Spain, Oman, and Japan. Jeddah also intends to improve its care system to reach such extent. Unlike more developed countries such as the United States and France, Jeddah faces numerous challenges associated with massive cost, poor outcome of the patients, and increased required in the healthcare sector. According to IOM, the factors that define the quality of healthcare system are safety, effectiveness, patient-centered delivery systems, timely services, efficiency, and equitability of the services offered. These indicators act as the blueprints in determining the quality of the healthcare system used in Jeddah. To enhance the quality of services provided in Jeddah, the practitioners need to embrace scientific knowledge, seek to reduce healthcare related injuries, enhance the outcome of the patients, and ensure provision of consistent and respectful care irrespective of the features and demographics of the patients. Challenges Faced In Ensuring Provision of Quality Care System in Jeddah Although in the recent years the healthcare system in Jeddah showed progress, there are several barriers influencing the delivery of quality care systems. Such barriers in turn lower satisfaction level of the patients and increase the turnover at the primary health care (PHC) institutions. Through overcoming these systems, Jeddah is guaranteed that the level of job satisfaction among the employees will improve and eventually enhance the general quality of the healthcare service delivery. In most Arab cities, including Jeddah, various problems tend to hinder the development of the healthcare services in the hospitals. Until the begging of the 21st century, the major problem faced by Jeddah was adequately equipped PHC hospitals since some of them were old house converted into clinics and dispensaries to accommodate the ever-increasing needs of the customers. Nonetheless, some of the secondary and tertiary hospitals currently used were properly constructed and furnished. Moreover, Jeddah hospitals also face serious problems associated with inadequate support (Ministry of Health, 2006). The support includes both financial and non-financial. The integration of these factors lowered the job satisfaction levels among the medical practitioners. Furthermore, these problems also resulted in disparities among the healthcare workers considered as physicians and doctors working within the secondary and tertiary hospitals in Jeddah. In Jeddah, the hospitals face several challenges that in turn affect the quality of healthcare services provided to the local communities. Some of the factors include deficiencies in the diagnostic tests, inadequate diagnostic services and practitioners, inadequate resources, and inability to access reference materials such as scientific journals. Besides, due to availability of these factors in the private hospitals and better working conditions, the available healthcare practitioners are moving from public to private hospitals, which also create more problems (Naiaz, 2006). These movements tend to deny the local communities and less privileged people in Jeddah considering the cost of care services is higher in private than public. The identified obstacles create stress and dissatisfaction of the services offered among the practitioners that consequently interfere with their level of creativity, commitment, and quality of care that they offer to the patients. Total Quality Management (TQM) In the Healthcare Sector of Jeddah Ensuring provision of quality healthcare services is a significant step towards growing a healthy population. Due to the cost effectiveness associated with TQM in ensuring increased productivity within the industrial sector, there was belief in Jeddah that its introduction and effective application with the healthcare sectors would advantageous to both practitioners and the patients. Such beliefs aroused the interest in ensuring provision of quality care within the hospitals. To understand the concept of TQM in Jeddah, it is significant to views various phases of its application. The initial phase traces back to the literature work carried out by Nightingale and Codman. Nightingale was a nurse during the Crimean war that drew that attention of many scholars on the importance of having systematic approaches of appraising the healthcare delivery systems and the links that occurred between the desired care and adequate outcomes. According to Codman, it was significant to introduce a common standard to enhance the quality of the healthcare based on the medical care assessment in the United States. Additionally, Codman argued that through restructuring the healthcare, the state would be creating the avenues of ensuring adequate improvement. Based on the work carried out by Codman, Jeddah could implement five different approaches or the minimum standards to guarantee the quality of healthcare services delivered to the people. These approaches include organization of the hospital medical staff, limitation of the staff membership to properly educated, competent, and fully licensed practitioners. In addition, it is significant to frame the rules and regulations that would ensure frequent meetings of the staffs and clinical review, ensuring that all the hospitals keep medical records of the patients including history, their physical examination, and results from the laboratory tests. More importantly, it would be significant to establish a well-supervised treatment and diagnostic facilities like clinical laboratories and other professional medical departments. In the recent years, the traditional roles of the hospital pharmacists in Jeddah changed from the medicine dispensers to the care providers due to the limited numbers of professionally trained healthcare practitioners to handle the care issues (Arab News, 2015). Additionally, unlike the past, the multidisciplinary team concept initially used is current adopted in the process of treating the patients. With the rising demands for the trained healthcare practitioners, the expectations of the patients are also on the rise with most of the previous literatures emphasizing on the ensuring satisfaction of the patients from the physician perspectives. Nevertheless, the evaluation of satisfaction among the patients with regard to healthcare services is a relative new in the developing countries. A satisfied patient with the healthcare services in hospitals often reflect better communication methods that might guarantee better result after treatment. Particularly noting these issues in Jeddah, ensuring the satisfaction of the patients has always remained a priority for most healthcare institutions. Moreover, with the recent establishment of the initiatives for the state to acquire Joint Commission International (JCI) accreditation has improved the benefits of ensuring satisfaction of the patients. The previous studies carried out focused more or less on the practitioners or the healthcare environments. However, none of such surveys focused on patient satisfaction with the services of pharmacies provided in the hospitals (Central Department of Statistics, 2010). In Jeddah, the scenario with regard to JCI accreditation is at boom, thus, it is significant to ensure documentation of the consumer satisfaction levels with an aim of improving the quality of the care system. Despite the frantic efforts by the Ministry of Health to improve the number of medical practitioners within Jeddah with specialty in quality management, the existing demand of the medical professionals to work within the already expanded care facilities exceeds the available local workforce. Such situation created the gap that requires to be filled by the foreign practitioners. In Saudi Arabia, according to the survey conducted by the Ministry of Health in 2006, it was found that approximately 78.7% and 76% of the healthcare practitioners were physicians and nurses from foreign states respectively. References Arab News. (2015, November 18). MedTech Forum reviews changing face of healthcare | Arab News. Retrieved from http://www.arabnews.com/economy/news/836961 Central Department of Statistics. (2010). Census Book for Saudi Arabia. Riyadh: Ministry of Economy and Planning. Ministry of Health. (2006). Health Statistical Year Book. Riyadh: Ministry of Health Press. Naiaz, A. H. (2006). The implementation of Quality Programme in General Directorates in Saudi Arabia. Quality Journal, 1(1), 11. World Health Organization (WHO). (2001). Health Systems: Improving Health. Geneva: World Health Organization. Read More