A study of patient perception for biochemistry laboratory services in a tertiary care hospital – A qualitative study

Introduction: Patients' evaluation of care is a realistic tool to provide opportunity for improvement, enhance strategic decision making, reduce cost, meet patients' expectations, frame strategies for effective management, monitor healthcare performance of health plans and provide benchmarking across the healthcare institutions. Surveys have become a tool to quantify the consumer experience. To the best of our knowledge, there is till date very little data reviewing the patient satisfaction for clinical biochemistry laboratory. Thus, this study is planned to find out the perception of patients for laboratory services for its improvement. Materials and Methods: Using the patient perception for laboratory services as a surrogate marker for quality and value of health care delivery, we reviewed the experience of 100 patients through well designed pre-validated questionnaires, having 11 closed ended and two open ended questions and evaluating the association between quality and patient reported experience for discussing the future opportunities and methods of improvement in Clinical Biochemistry Laboratory, SGRDIMSAR, and Amritsar. Results: The overall satisfaction level for laboratory services was very high being 100% for cleanliness and referring the laboratory services to others. It was 97.3% indicating excellent staff behaviour whereas the least was for locating the laboratory i.e. 89.19%. Conclusion: The overall degree of patient satisfaction was very high especially regarding the cleanliness of toilets & behaviour and guidance of the laboratory staff. This would really help in boosting their morale and future willingness to work harder and serve patients in a better manner.