Evaluating attitudes towards patient care and operations at Korle-Bu outpatient clinic

Background: Extensive research suggests that positive patient experience leads to improvement in patient health outcomes. Patient experience is particularly important in ambulatory care, where a patient builds a long-term relationship with a provider to manage his/her chronic illness over the span of years. Despite these known benefits, patient experience and its impact on health outcomes is poorly understood in low-and middle-income countries, where resources may be limited and primary care infrastructure spotty. Objectives: This paper aims to better characterize patient experience in a tertiary teaching hospital in Accra, Ghana. Methods: Forty qualitative interviews were conducted in the Outpatient Medical Clinic at Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra, Ghana. All interviews were transcribed and a qualitative analysis of central themes was evaluated by the study team. Findings: We found patients eager to share their views on clinical care in an ambulatory clinic in Ghana’s largest tertiary care center. Patients voiced desires for decreasing patient wait times, increasing wayfind-ing resources to navigate the clinic, creating appointment times, and implementing continuity of care with a single physician. The majority of patients also reported feeling actively engaged in their clinical care and emphasized their positive interpersonal interactions with providers. Conclusions: These findings suggest that patients described positive interpersonal experiences with providers at this ambulatory clinic, but identified numerous operational changes that could be made to vastly improve patient experience.