ABSTRACT
The study assessed the management practices, patient satisfaction, and implementation of public medical services including the Malasakit program in a government hospital in the Province of Guimaras during the fiscal year 2023-2024. Using a descriptive research design, 100 patients and 50 employees were purposively selected, and data were collected through researcher-made questionnaires. The findings of the study revealed that both patients and employees perceived the level of management practices and the implementation of the Malasakit program to be exceptionally high. Furthermore, the study indicated that there were no significant differences in the level of management practices and the implementation of the Malasakit program across various demographic variables. Similarly, patient satisfaction levels did not differ significantly based on age, sex, educational attainment, and family income. It was recommended that healthcare providers and administrators conduct regular assessments to monitor changes in patient satisfaction, management practices and implementation of public medical services.
Keywords: Public Medical Services, Management Practices, Client Satisfaction
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
It is a policy of the State to adopt an integrated and comprehensive approach to health development, which shall endeavor to make essential goods, health and other social services available to all the people at affordable cost.
There shall be priority for the needs of the underprivileged, sick, elderly, disabled, women and children. The State shall endeavor to provide free medical care to paupers (Article XIII, Section 11, Philippine Constitution).
To this end, Healthcare management roles are crucial to the overall operations of the health care system. In fact, tasks such as the management of facilities and human resources improving the patient experience and implementing hospitals policies are examples of medical management at the organizational level.
At the most fundamental level, management is a discipline that consists of a set of five general functions: planning, organizing, staffing, leading and controlling. They are usually done by medical healthcare administrators.
The enormous tasks of healthcare administrators include developing organizational goals and objectives; recruiting, training, and supervising medical staff; ensuring compliance with patient privacy laws and other pertinent state, and local regulations; and creating work schedules. On the other hand, the health services include mental health care, dental care, laboratory and diagnostic care, substance abuse treatment, preventative care. Occupational therapy, nutritional support and pharmaceutical care. Providing social health protection and equal access to quality healthcare has significant positive effects on individual and public health, economic growth and development. The healthcare system offers four broad types of services: health promotion, disease prevention, diagnosis and treatment, and rehabilitation (Caron et al., 2023).
However, there are two types of healthcare services, i.e., private healthcare services and public healthcare services. In addition, there are six principles of medical health care services and acting on these principles will require leadership commitment, a shift in thinking, and a focus on systems change (Guisti, 2001).
These six principles are the following: agility and responsiveness, supportive culture, transparent communication and committed listening, connectedness to meaning in work, supportive systems of working, and future directions and pursuit of equality. A healthy community benefits every person in it, and community health is one means of achieving a healthy community. The field of public health aims to protect and improve health by addressing the structures and systems that define a place-and by supporting the people who live and work there in making healthy choices.
Meanwhile, there are barriers to healthcare access in the Philippines. These are insufficient insurance coverage; a lack of insufficient healthcare staffing are stigma and bias among the medical community and transportation and other work-related barriers (Kluwer, 2022)
These barriers have challenged the researcher for some time, she being a provincial medical officer with several years of experience, these barriers and other related challenges have triggered her interest to look into this phenomenon. Thus, the study.
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