Measuring the quality of health services in university hospitals in Saudi Arabia from the perspective of patients: A Review
Sultan Saed Alharthi
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to review the available research studies on the subject of measuring the quality of health services in university hospitals in Saudi Arabia from the perspective of patients. With rising standards of living across the world, patients today expect quality health care to be provided to them. This paper aims to review some of the research studies which have been carried out on how health service quality can be measured in university hospitals in Saudi Arabia, especially from the perspective of patients. For this paper, specific search terms were used in the Google Scholar search engine and the results were shortlisted according to the year of publication. From the review of the available studies on the subject, it was clear that university hospitals the level of quality of health services provided in university hospitals in Saudi Arabia requires improvement, specifically in areas of patient safety, clinical effectiveness and patient centeredness. It was also clear that patient satisfaction was one of the significant factors which decides the quality of service being provided in healthcare settings. The study also highlighted that private hospitals in Saudi Arabia were not able to attract high expertise because the level of incentives being paid to medical staff was insufficient. Hence, the level of patient satisfaction went down because of this.