PurposeA common way to handle quality problems and increasing costs of modern health care systems is more transparency through public reporting. Thereby, patient satisfaction is seen as one main reported outcome. Previous studies proposed several associated factors. Only a few of them included organizational determinants with potential to inform the health care provider's management. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the influence of organizational contingency factors on patient satisfaction.Design/methodology/approachAs a case, Switzerland's inpatient rehabilitation sector was used. Therein, a cross-sectional study of public released secondary data with an exploratory multiple linear regression (MLR) modeling approach was conducted.FindingsFive significant influencing factors on patient satisfaction were found. They declared 42.2% of the variance in satisfaction on provider level. The organizations' supplementary insured patients, staff payment, outpatients, extracantonal patients and permanent resident population revealed significant correlations with patient satisfaction.Research limitations/implicationsDrawing on publicly available cross-sectional data, statistically no causality can be proved. However, integration of routine data and organization theory can be useful for further studies.Practical implicationsRegarding inpatient satisfaction, improvement levers for providers' managers are as follow: first, service provision should be customized to patients' needs, expectations and context; second, employees' salary should be adequate to prevent dissatisfaction; third, the main business should be prioritized to avoid frittering.Originality/valueFormer studies regarding public reporting are often atheoretical and rarely used organizational variables as determinants for relevant outcomes. Therefore, uniformed data are useful.

Zusammenfassung Zielsetzung Public Reporting (PR) von Qualitätsdaten gehört zu modernen Gesundheitssystemen. Jedoch zeigen aktuelle Reviews, dass der Nutzen begrenzt ist. Mit dem Nationalen Verein für Qualitätsentwicklung in Spitälern und Kliniken (ANQ) hat man auch in der Schweiz ein Messprogramm etabliert. Er misst in den stationären Sektoren unter anderem die Patientenzufriedenheit. Insbesondere bei den Leistungserbringern interessieren die Verhaltensstrategien auf solche Initiativen, da man idealerweise von einer Übernahme ins interne Qualitätsmanagement ausgeht. Methodik Semistrukturierte Interviewstudie von Seniormanagern in Deutschschweizer Rehabilitationskliniken unter Berücksichtigung des Neo-Institutionalismus. Ergebnisse Seniormanager wenden eine Fülle von Verhaltensstrategien an, wobei zustimmende und ablehnende Strategien gleichzeitig vorkommen. Schlussfolgerungen Externe Qualitätssicherungssysteme, wie der ANQ, führen nicht zwangsläufig zur Berücksichtigung für die interne Qualitätsarbeit. Vor allem lokale Faktoren scheinen erfolgskritisch für PR.

The National Association for Quality Development in Hospitals and Clinics (ANQ) has conducted patient satisfaction measurements in the inpatient sector in Switzerland since 2009. Specifically designed for this measurement, an instrument consisting of five questions was evaluated on an 11-point rating scale. Nevertheless, the instrument showed substantial ceiling effects, which did not allow for hospital discrimination. Therefore, ANQ initiated a revision testing different scales in a pilot study. The results showed that a 5-point verbal scale displayed good psychometric properties. Compared to the 7-or 11-point scales, the 5-point verbal scale exhibited reduced ceiling effects, which was more appropriate to compare hospitals. For the national public reporting of hospitals and clinics, risk adjustment by age and self-reported health status was recommended, which was not the case for gender, principal diagnosis, type of admission and insurance status.

Le renforcement de la perspective des patientes et patients par le recours accru aux PROM fait partie des priorités de la stratégie qualité actuelle de l'OFSP. © Nikolay Litov / DreamstimeLa qualité du point de vue des patients PROM Grâce aux Patient Reported Outcome Measures, la perspective des patientes et patients occupe désormais une place essentielle dans l' évaluation de la qualité des établissements et services de santé. Parallèlement, ces indicateurs posent de nouveaux défis aux professionnels de la santé, aux directions et aux organisations de la santé publique.

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