title: [Assessment of health care services quality by medical professionals and patients].
abstract: The article presents the data of medical professionals and patients' assessment of health care services quality in Jurbarkas hospital. All physicians and nurses, working full time, and patients, treated in the hospital within November-December 2002, were invited to participate in the survey. The response rate among the physicians was 79.5%; while among the nurses and the patients it was 64.5%, and 68.9% correspondingly. The patients and medical professionals' satisfaction was evaluated using an anonymous questionnaire, which was developed with the reference to R. J. Ferguson et al proposed method for health care service quality assessment. It was determined, that physicians and nurses assessed health care quality in the hospital similarly. The patients' assessment of overall health care services was higher compared with that of the medical professionals. The overall health service quality was rated 4.26 (0.6) points by the patients, 3.81 (0.5) points by physicians and 3.74 (0.8) points by nurses, p<0.05. The technical aspects of health care quality were assessed worse than the functional ones both by medical professionals and patients. The physicians and nurses rated their communication with the patients more critically than the patients. The differences between the medical professionals and patients' assessments concerning health care services quality demonstrate, that in order to achieve comprehensive information, it is necessary to organize a universal survey. The information assembled from different sources will allow collecting more objective and comprehensive data about the quality of health care services in hospital.
authors.affiliation: Kaunas University for Medicine, Kaunas, Lithuania.
authors.forename: Ilona
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Buciūniene
authors.forename: Jonas
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Petkinis
authors.forename: Zemyna
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Milasauskiene
mesh_terms: D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D006761:Hospitals / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D008097:Lithuania; D008505:Medical Staff, Hospital; D009741:Nursing Staff, Hospital; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D019555:Physician-Nurse Relations; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires