Research Paper on Patient Satisfaction in Health Care

Introduction

With the continuous increase of more medical services providers in the market, directing organization practice to the needs of customers will assure the existence of these organizations in the service provision. Organizations which will not meet and surpass customer expectations will be assumed irrelevant and they will get it difficult to continue existing in the market (McKnight & Franko, 2016). Customer Satisfaction is one of the key areas that every organization will need to look and continue reexamining. It is one of the indications which will tell whether the organization is relevant in the market or not.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

A satisfied customer will mean that the organization has identified and attained what the customer requires for his or her needs. Satisfied customers will remain loyal to the organization and it will imply that the organization will continue meeting organizational objectives such as a number of sales as there will continue flow and referral of more customers into the operations of the identified customer satisfying entity. In exploring methods in ethical communication in private healthcare organization, this study will make use of utilitarianism and relativism approaches in determining the reasons of patients' dissatisfaction and the possible measures which will be put into practice to solve the inherent problems to patients' satisfaction in these organizations.

Utilitarianism Approach

Every action will result in results which may be wrong or right morally. The consequences will create benefits or happiness to a different number of people. The number of individuals who will benefit may be none, a few or multitude. Utilitarianism is the form of consequentialism and one of ethical theory which aids the determination of right from wrong by examining the probable outcomes. According to utilitarianism approach, the morality of any action will be qualified depending on the number of people who will gain satisfaction from the act. For the action to be assumed moral with respect to utilitarianism, the benefit accrued from the action will result to benefit many people possible. In case the action will result in benefitting fewer people than normal, the action will not be assumed moral.

It is one of the frameworks and reasoning which is applied in military operations and the business world. The military sector is meant to protect the safety of the country`s citizen. Business, on the other hand, will maximize the generation of more profits through huge sales. In relation to the military, any mission which will be operationalized will be expected to cause little no harm while the greatest number will benefit. In relation to businesses, any strategy or operation which the enterprise will put into action will be meant to attract more customers which will help the organization to make more sale that will result to the generation of more profits within a given period of time.

Relativism Approach

According to this approach, there is no universal objective to the truth. Each view has its own truth. Based on the ethical relativism, ethical truth depends on the mind of a person. Under this, what is assumed to truly morally depend on the beliefs that are dominant in a given location.

HIPAA Regulations

Health Insurance Portability Accountability Act is regulation which was set out a deal with the secrecy and privacy of patient information (Schulz et al., 2016). This regulation provides the instances when the patient information should be discussed and when there will no provision of any disclosure. Despite the fact that this legal requirement is in operation, there are instances when communication in relation to patient`s information is done, a factor that makes patients unsatisfied.

Reasons Why Patients Feel Unsatisfied

Based on utilitarianism and relativism approaches, there are various reasons which make patients in the hospital set-up to feel unsatisfied. They are explained as below:

Employee Accessing of Patient Information

Information related to the customer is crucial and it should not be handled by the unauthorized person either by accident, curiosity or any other reasons (Garner, 2017). Accessing of patients files, getting access to some information is illegal and it can serve as one of the reasons that can make patients be unsatisfied with the operations of the private healthcare. In some of these cases, the employee can readily get access of the personal identity by use of the patient names and in case there are patient photos which can result to gossiping an action that is wrong to personal health information's.

Social Media

Social media is important in spread awareness of useful events which can create economic values in the society (Cohen & Mello, 2018). However, in other cases, social media can act contrarily to the expectations of other members in the society. For instance, these media can use the photo identity of the person when making some advertisement which can result in a violation of dictates of HIPAA under the protection of health information. However, without disclosing of the names of the patient, media may not create so harm but the fact is that if in case the patient will discover that the source of his or her photo is the healthcare institution, the patient will not get satisfied with the hospital in relation to the protection of patients` information.

Accessing Patients Information on Home Computers

Patient's information is documents which should be within the boundaries of the premise. They are not expected to be taken into residential homes. This is because of the fact that whenever this information is taken into the residential homes, there are possibilities that family members to the health practitioners who brought that information to his or her residential areas can readily disclose this information to any person who may use them for personal benefits.

Texting of Patient Information

Some communication means will not provide 100% security to the privacy of information which is sent electronically (Liss, 2016). In some cases, the information which is transferred in text for can land to the wrong person who may use for wrong areas. Under such situations, HIPAA will seem to be violated and it will be assumed as part of the means which cause a patient to be unsatisfied.

Medical Information Mishandling

It is the responsibility of the health practitioner to keep all the information about the patient under lock (Terry, 2014). In some case, after the health profession has completed making entries to the patient record, willingly the record will be left on the table while the room is used by different staff members. There are higher chances that any member within the staff can readily get access to the information recorded and use it to maximize his or her self-interests.

Lost or Stolen Electronic Information

Some information storage can readily get stolen or just get lost unknowingly (Kayaalp et al., 2015). Some storage such as memory cards, flash cards are so small and they can readily get lost and maybe fall into wrong hands. In case the information stored is not encrypted, patient information can be used for wrong motives this making patients to feel unsatisfied.

Solutions

Training

Some employees in the health sector are not properly trained. Some of them are not well equipped with a sensitivity of information relating to a person. Providing they will intensive training will make them understand the call of their profession and them duty they have in protecting the secrecy of their clients.

Devising New Storage

However good is technological change, to some extent, it can cause treat to customer`s information (Klein& Monson, R201). For instance, with the evolution of small storage devices which can store huge information, patients` information can land to wrong people in case such devices are lost or stolen. If it is necessary for these organizations to use these devices, there is a need to devise protection means such putting passwords or other encryptions that will prevent any other person to get access to the stored information.

Alternative to Texting Patient Information

Customer information is so crucial and sensitive. If it lands to wrong people it can cause a great problem. Healthcare organizations should find alternative methods of sharing required patient information as texting through the mobile phone can easily get accessed by wrong individuals.

Storage

For different reasons, patient information can be stored in either electronic or manual. Irrespective of the form in which the information is stored, it is the responsibility of the health practitioner to ensure that in every reference made, the file is taken back to its storage and then locked up to avoid chances of it being accessed by wrong individuals.

References

Cohen, I. G., & Mello, M. M. (2018). HIPAA and Protecting Health Information in the 21st Century. JAMA.

Garner, C. B. (2017). A Time to Kill HIPAA.

Kayaalp, M., Browne, A. C., Sagan, P., McGee, T., & McDonald, C. J. (2015). Challenges and insights in using HIPAA privacy rule for clinical text annotation. In AMIA Annual Symposium Proceedings (Vol. 2015, p. 707). American Medical Informatics Association.

Klein, S. R., & Monson, R. A. (2015). Beyond HIPAA: Connected Health Care and the Internet of Things.

Liss, B. (2016). HIPAA and Mobile Health. NJ Law., 20.

McKnight, R., & Franko, O. (2016). HIPAA compliance with mobile devices among ACGME programs. Journal of medical systems, 40(5), 129.

Schulz, R., Eden, J., & National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2016). HIPAA and Caregivers' Access to Information.

Terry, N. (2014). Health privacy is difficult but not impossible in a post-hipaa data-driven world. Chest, 146(3), 835-840.