Satisfaction with hospital medical services as rated directly by inpatients improved from a year earlier. The Health Insurance Review & Assessment Service (HIRA) released institution-by-institution grades for the first time this year.
HIRA on the 31st released the results of the "2025 (5th) patient experience assessment." The assessment surveyed discharged patients from 376 tertiary general hospitals and general hospitals, with a final 130,435 respondents.
The composite score came to 87.54 points. All seven domains—nurses, doctors, medication and treatment process, emotional support, patient safety and hospital environment, protection of patient rights, and overall assessment—scored above 80 points. Compared with the 4th assessment, scores rose across all domains.
By domain, the overall assessment was highest at 89.31 points, followed by the nurse domain (88.99 points) and patient safety and hospital environment (88.86 points). By contrast, the emotional support domain was lowest at 82.37 points.
In detailed items, "verification of patient identity" received the highest score at 91.40 points. In contrast, "comfort and empathy regarding the illness" was the lowest at 82.37 points, and "opportunities to talk sufficiently with doctors" (84.11 points) and "information provided about rounding times" (84.76 points) were also relatively low.
HIRA introduced institution-by-institution grading for the first time starting with this assessment. Composite scores of 90 points or higher were grade 1, and 85 to 90 points were grade 2.
Of the 376 institutions assessed, 363 were eligible for grade calculation. Among them, 57 (15.7%) were grade 1, 85 (23.4%) were grade 2, 129 (35.5%) were grade 3, 80 (22.1%) were grade 4, and 12 (3.3%) were grade 5. Eleven with insufficient samples were excluded from grading.
The longer the participation period in the assessment, the higher the scores. The 91 institutions that participated continuously since the first assessment had a composite score of 90.79 points, 3.25 points higher than the overall average. Items related to patients' right to know—such as guidance on rounding times and explanations of the reasons for tests and procedures—also showed improvement with each round of assessment.
This survey was conducted via mobile questionnaires from August to December last year. The number of respondents more than doubled from 64,246 the previous year to 130,435, and the response rate rose from 13.6% to 20.7%.
HIRA will greatly expand the scope starting with the 6th assessment to be conducted next year. In addition to the existing tertiary general hospitals and general hospitals, it plans to assess a total of 887 medical institutions by including specialty hospitals and hospitals with 100 or more beds.
Hong Seung-kwon, HIRA president, said, "By disclosing assessment grades for the first time this year, we made it easier for the public to check hospital-by-hospital levels of medical services," and added, "Going forward, we will expand assessments to the hospital level and develop them to reflect not only patient experience but also treatment outcomes."