DOI: 10.36347/sjams.2019.v07i06.016

Pages: 2119-2122

Patients are the most significant of the healthcare team and that different factors affect the overall quality of the healthcare system. Thus, this study generally assessed and compared the hospital waste management, patient safety culture, and patient satisfaction of the hospitals in the districts of Cagayan. Three different bed capacity hospitals of Cagayan are used namely 25-bed, 40-bed and 50-bed capacities. The data were gathered by administering the medical waste management practice questionnaire and patient safety culture questionnaire to the ten (10) medical- and ten (10) non-medical employees to each of the hospitals; the patient satisfaction questionnaires were administered to 28 patients or their “bantays” for each hospital. Descriptive statistics is applied to the collected data and results show that in terms of medical waste management practices, the 25-bed capacity hospitals have a favorable waste management system, while 40-bed and 50-bed capacity hospitals have neither favorable nor unfavorable practices. Considering patient safety culture, results show that all of the hospitals exhibited a very good patient safety culture, thus promoting patient safety within the hospital. In view of the patients’ satisfaction as assessed by the patients or their watchers, all of the hospitals achieved a high satisfaction rate, reflecting that patients are pleased by their overall hospital experience. The study concludes that although the hospitals showed very good patient safety culture and achieved high satisfaction rates, the hospital waste management of the 40-bed and 50-bed capacity hospitals, namely Aparri and Tuao hospitals, respectively, needs further development, since improper waste management brings high risks to healthcare workers, the public and the environment at large.