The impact of the financial crisis and austerity policies on the service quality of public hospitals in Greece

Abstract

The influence of the financial crisis on the efficiency of Greek public hospitals has been widely debated. Despite this increasing interest in such research, the question of to what extent the recent reforms in the Greek National health care system were effective in establishing a health care structure and process that provide better results for patients has yet to be fully investigated. As a step in this direction, the paper focuses on patient's experience with public hospital care quality before and during the economic crisis. A questionnaire survey was carried out among 1872 patients discharged from 110 out of the total of 124 Greek public hospitals. Patients' perceptions were analysed using a structural equation modelling approach. The findings reveal that public hospital service quality is at a medium level (66.2 on a scale from 1 to 100) over 2007-2014, presenting a decreasing trend during the recession. Policies to address the crisis may have contributed to a reduction in hospital expenditures, but at the same time patients were increasingly dissatisfied with the technical care. Consequently, there is a need for reforms aimed at the achievement of productivity gains, responsibility, and transparency in the management of productive resources, by enabling health organisations to reduce their costs without a deterioration in the quality of care.

Keywords: Economic crisis; Greece; Partial least square path modelling; Perceived service quality; Public hospitals.