A Unique Mathematical Framework for Optimizing Patient Satisfaction in Emergency Departments
نویسندگان
1 Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Fouman Faculty of Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Tehran, Iran
2 School of Industrial Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
3 School of Industrial Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
4 Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Fouman Faculty of Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Tehran, Iran
5 School of Industrial Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
doi
10.22059/ijms.2019.263086.673239چکیده
In healthcare systems, emergency departments (EDs) are the most vitalelements, in that they provide critical and immediate healthcare services to thepatients 24 hours a day. Patient satisfaction is a crucial concept and a practicaltool for evaluating the performance of the EDs. This study presents a uniqueframework for the performance optimization of an emergency department in abig general hospital in Iran based on the standard patient satisfaction indicators.Standard questionnaire is designed and used in a large and busy emergencydepartment. The reliability and validity of the questionnaires are obtained byCronbach’s alpha and parametric and non-parametric analysis of variance(ANOVA), respectively. Afterwards, the most efficient data envelopmentanalysis (DEA) model is selected and employed to assess the performance of theemergency department based on the selected indicators. Results show thatcertain indicators such as quality of equipment, performance of physicians andtreatment time have the greatest impact (weight) on overall patient satisfaction.The framework of this study is a practical approach for all types of emergencydepartments in the process of the improvement and optimization of patientsatisfaction
