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

[Qualité des soins, satisfaction des patients et incitations hospitalières en France]

Nicolas Sirven () and Myriam Lescher
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Nicolas Sirven: Larefi - Laboratoire d'analyse et de recherche en économie et finance internationales - UB - Université de Bordeaux, LIRAES - EA 4470 - Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire de Recherche Appliquée en Economie de la Santé - UPD5 - Université Paris Descartes - Paris 5
Myriam Lescher: LIRAES - EA 4470 - Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire de Recherche Appliquée en Economie de la Santé - UPD5 - Université Paris Descartes - Paris 5

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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.

Keywords: Signal quality; Healthcare markets; Hospital performance; Quality and safety indicators; Agency theory; Marché hospitalier; Performance hospitalière; Indicateurs de qualité et de sécurité de soins; Théorie de l'agence; Signal de qualité (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-04-01
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published in Revue d'économie politique, 2019, 129 (4), pp.525. ⟨10.3917/redp.294.0525⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03389625

DOI: 10.3917/redp.294.0525

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