[Patient satisfaction-subjective quality assessment by patients and success factor for clinics].

In the field of measuring patient satisfaction (in other words, the quality perceived subjectively by hospital patients) there is still a great need for more knowledge. Therefore, the Institute of Medical Computer Science and Biometry of the University of Rostock carried out a questioning of 497 patients at the Hospital for Internal Medicine of the University Rostock to measure the patient satisfaction with the hospital. In addition, an employee questioning was performed in order to gain further information. In addition to univariate and bivariate analyses a special focus was set on the analysis of the hospitals' competitive situation, to take into account the importance of patient satisfaction as strategic success factor within the competitive situation. A competition analysis and a Key-Issue Analysis were performed. Finally, focus is on the problems of external hospital comparison and a comparison of trends of patient satisfaction at hospitals in Hamburg and Rostock was made.