Abstract
This research project comprises two parts. The first part is the review of experiences in researches in quality of health care and setting a preliminary proposal for research question frameworks. The second part is a survey of situations and questions among stakeholders, namely providers and clients, regarding quality of the health services system and quality improvement and a summary of strategies to approach quality of health care research. The project report presents the findings of the Phase 2 study, which aims to a survey of situations and questions among stakeholders, namely providers and clients, regarding quality of the health services system and quality improvement and a summary of strategies to approach quality of health care research. The focus areas, which are drawn from the findings in the Phase 1 study, include problems and obstacles in quality improvement, patient safety, and expectation and perceived services from patient perspective. Descriptive studies by questionnaires were conducted health care providers and patients in 39 public and private hospitals and 39 primary care units in 12 areas nationwide and Bangkok. In addition, hospital accreditation surveyors were surveyed. There were also in-depth interviews among primary-care-unit patients and a telephone survey of people in Bangkok and its vicinity area. The studies were conducted during January 2004 to December 2004. Major findings include 33 interesting research topics on quality improvement issues and 40 topics on patient safety issues from the studies on health care providers. There are four topics on primary care units. There are 12 topics identified by the surveyor group; some of which are similar to those of the provider group. In addition, there are another 22 research topics set apart from the patient and consumer studies. In sum, these findings are details consistent with what have been found in the Phase 1 of this research project.
