<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p> In this paper, public health care administration issues are reviewed and public hospital patients’ views on quality of health care are empirically tested. The purpose is to support the recommendation of new public policies that lead to better performance, if necessary. Hospital patients’ views on service quality were assessed through a questionnaire to estimate a global customer satisfaction measure. We argue that customer satisfaction should be measured through multiple indicators, as a latent variable. Thus, we considered the latent segment models (LSM) approach to assess customer service satisfaction. We found a twosegment latent structure: segment 1, the satisfied, with 48 percent of patients, mostly male and middle-aged patients; and segment 2, the unsatisfied, with 52 percent of patients, mostly female and youngest/oldest patients.</p></abstract>

In this paper, public health care administration issues are reviewed and public hospital patients’ views on quality of health care are empirically tested. The purpose is to support the recommendation of new public policies that lead to better performance, if necessary. Hospital patients’ views on service quality were assessed through a questionnaire to estimate a global customer satisfaction measure. We argue that customer satisfaction should be measured through multiple indicators, as a latent variable. Thus, we considered the latent segment models (LSM) approach to assess customer service satisfaction. We found a twosegment latent structure: segment 1, the satisfied, with 48 percent of patients, mostly male and middle-aged patients; and segment 2, the unsatisfied, with 52 percent of patients, mostly female and youngest/oldest patients.

Policy Effects on the Quality of Public Health Care: Evaluating Portuguese Public Hospitals’ Quality through Customers’ Views

Instituto Superior de Ciências Sociais e Políticas, Universidade de Lisboa, CAPP – Centro de Administração e Políticas Públicas, Portugal

Central European Journal of Public Policy

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

In this paper, public health care administration issues are reviewed and public hospital patients’ views on quality of health care are empirically tested. The...

Policy Effects on the Quality of Public Health Care: Evaluating Portuguese Public Hospitals’ Quality through Customers’ Views

Published Online: Feb 16, 2016

Page range: 122 - 131

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/cejpp-2016-0015

Keywords
public administration, public policies, health care evaluation, patients’ views, latent segment models, customer satisfaction, Portugal

© 2016

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Policy Effects on the Quality of Public Health Care: Evaluating Portuguese Public Hospitals’ Quality through Customers’ Views

Published Online: Feb 16, 2016

Page range: 122 - 131

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/cejpp-2016-0015

Keywordspublic administration, public policies, health care evaluation, patients’ views, latent segment models, customer satisfaction, Portugal

© 2016

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Keywords
public administration, public policies, health care evaluation, patients’ views, latent segment models, customer satisfaction, Portugal