Assessment of Quality of Health Care in Jimma Zone, Southwest Ethiopia

BACKGROUND Quality of care is an important aspect of health care delivery system that is given a priority. Quality is a multidimensional concept that has been defined in various ways. Variation in quality of care between different health care facilities is thought to reflect differences in efficiency and other organizational factors. There was no adequate study related to quality of health care in Jimma zone. Therefore, the objective of this study was to assess quality of health care in Jimma zone. METHODS A cross sectional quantitative study design was employed to assess the quality of care with respect to structure, care process and customer satisfaction involving 640 patients and 96 care providers in Jimma zone, southwest Ethiopia. Data were collected using an interview questionnaire and observation checklist devised by the investigators. RESULTS The study showed that, on average, the studied institutions fulfilled 153(70.4%) of the health human power need. They also fulfilled 86(62.8%) of major equipment requirement against the national standard. The composite average satisfaction level of patients was 89.1% and that of the care providers was 86.7%. Nevertheless, the respect given to patients by care providers was rated as poor. A significant proportion, 39(48.2%) of the care providers were assessed as low performance. CONCLUSIONS Majority of study subjects rated the overall quality of care as "good". However the observation revealed that the human aspect of care was "poor". In addition, the health institutions were facing shortage of human and material resources. Thus it was recommended that the responsible bodies at the 3 levels should take actions for improving institutional capacity and performance of care providers in order to improve quality of care.