Abstract
The purpose of this study was to identify the reason for patients to choose a hospital. We divided the hospital into two types of hospitals : corporate hospitals and university hospitals. We inverstigated patients' satisfaction according to the image of hospitals. For this purpose, two corporate hospitals and two university hospitals were selected. Data were collected from the self-administered questionnaire for the patients admitted to these four hospitals in April 1996. 772 questionnaires were collected and 55 cases had no answer or insincere answers. So, we used 707 questionnaires for the analysis. Corporate hospitals had modern facilities. However, patients preferred university hospitals because of the reliability of medical staffs and easy accessibility. University hospitals had higher level of satisfaction of medical services, while the corporate hospital had higher level of satisfaction to the friendly atmosphere, and kindness of hospital staffs. When the patients come to hospitals again after discharge, they would consider medical services, hospital atmosphere, and kindness of medical staffs regardless of hospital types. In conclusion, the reasons for patients selecting university hospitals are reliability, history, and tradition of medical services. Instead,, the reasons for patients selecting corporate hospitals are modernization of hospital facilities.
