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The following is issued on behalf of the Hospital Authority:
The Hospital Authority (HA) Board today (September 25) discussed and endorsed the Hospital-based Patient Experience and Satisfaction Survey 2013 report. The HA will study the findings in detail to identify improvement areas for maintaining high-quality services at public hospitals.
This is the second time that the HA has conducted a survey of this type related to patient satisfaction. The Survey was conducted by the Jockey Club School of Public Health and Primary Care (JCSPHPC) of the Faculty of Medicine of the Chinese University of Hong Kong in seven HA acute hospitals. A total of 3,566 patients were interviewed.
According to the Survey, over 80 per cent of the respondents rated the care provided by doctors and nurses as good or very good, while over 80 per cent said they had confidence and trust in doctors and nurses when being given treatment. The Survey also found that around 76 per cent of respondents marked the overall care received as good or very good.
The HA Chairman, Professor John Leong, was delighted by the overall results of the Survey. "It is a recognition for HA staff members who relentlessly provide quality service with a hard-working attitude, as well as a great encouragement to our front-line colleagues who are facing heavy workload," he said.
Professor Leong also thanked the 3,000-plus patients who were willing to be interviewed. With their help, the Survey was accomplished successfully. He said he hopes patients will continue to support HA surveys in future and provide more invaluable suggestions for the HA.
The HA Director of Quality and Safety, Dr Derrick Au, welcomed the findings of the Survey. "Patients' feelings and views are of great importance for public hospitals to improve their services constantly. Obviously, the findings of the Survey would help the HA to enhance the quality of services in future," Dr Au said.
Based on the Survey, some aspects of patients' experience were not as satisfactory as desired, namely opportunities to talk to a doctor, provision of information about possible side effects of medication, and provision of information on danger signals. All these aspects recorded lower scores in the Survey.
Dr Au stressed that the HA would study the dissatisfactory aspects and work with individual hospitals on concrete improvement measures.
"Although the overall rating is good, there have been differences in the scoring of the seven surveyed acute hospitals in specific areas and it is inevitable that such discrepancies may exist. The HA will work with individual hospitals on measures for improvement, while hospitals will take reference from each other for improvement," he said.
Dr Au said the HA is well aware of the growing expectations in regard to services of public hospitals and would commit to making efforts in providing good quality services to the people of Hong Kong.
The JCSPHPC of the Faculty of Medicine of the Chinese University of Hong Kong was commissioned by the HA in 2009 to develop a tool for measuring patient experience and satisfaction. With this tool, the first territory-wide patient satisfaction survey was conducted among 5,030 patients in seven clusters of the HA. The results were announced in 2011.
The general public is welcome to browse the full version of the Hospital-based Patient Experience and Satisfaction Survey 2013 report, which has been posted on the HA homepage (www.ha.org.hk) under the "Special Reports" section in Corporate News.
Ends/Thursday, September 25, 2014
Issued at HKT 19:27
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