Healthcare Quality, Patients’ Satisfaction, and Hospital Incentives in France

Myriam Lescher and Nicolas Sirven

Revue d'économie politique, 2019, vol. 129, issue 4, 525-551

Abstract: Health Authorities in France recently produced and made publicly available a wide array of regularly updated hospital care quality measures (www.scopesante.fr). Economic theory applied to healthcare markets predicts that monitoring costs incurred by Health Authorities (the principal) to signal hospitals? (the agent) quality should create incentives for the latter to improve their Quality and Safety Indicators (QSIs). However, patients rarely refer to technical quality information to choose between hospitals. They are more prone to make use of subjective appraisals (such as word-of-mouth) of which patients? satisfaction is a proxy. Using a unique dataset of 2,323 hospitals in France, and overcoming sample selection issues, we found a strong and positive correlation between a standardized measure of patients? satisfaction (e-satis) and various measures of QSIs. Our results suggest that, since patients use a signal that carries information about quality, hospitals could be incited to increase healthcare quality. Codes JEL: I18, L25, C34

Keywords: healthcare markets; hospital performance; quality and safety indicators; agency theory; signal quality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C34 I18 L25 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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