Hospital quality information for patients in Taiwan: can they understand it?

Objectives. To investigate Taiwanese patients' ability to judge hospital quality and to examine their knowledge of commonly used quality indicators. Design. Survey of patients during their stay in hospital. Setting. Internal medicine, surgery, and gynecology wards in seven hospitals in northern Taiwan. Participants. Sample of 661 patients who voluntarily completed a questionnaire. Main outcome measures. (1) Patients' ability to judge hospital quality in relation to medical equipment, technical competence, and medication; (2) patients' knowledge of seven quality indicators: patient satisfaction, hospital-acquired infection, accreditation level, percent specialists, malpractice claims, unscheduled readmission, and mortality rate 48 hours after surgery. Results. A total of 31-50% of the participants claimed that they could judge a hospital's quality on the basis of medical equipment, technical competence, or medication. The most frequently mentioned reasons on which their judgments were based were related to their own experiences and to the hospital's reputation. The percentage of participants reporting that they understood the quality indicators was 6.7-42.1%. Conclusion. In general, patients lack the ability to judge hospital quality and are unfamiliar with the commonly used quality indicators. Public education should be enhanced, or more understandable indicators should be developed in the future.