Improving patient satisfaction with elective surgery waiting: An empowerment perspective

Waiting for elective surgery has been causing severe patient dissatisfaction and is becoming a major concern in most countries with publicly funded healthcare systems. While waitlists, which are used to rationalize the balances between healthcare service demand and supply, are almost impossible to avoid currently, healthcare policy makers could try to remove the tension through providing more satisfactory elective surgery waitlist information to patients on the waitlist. This work-in-progress paper seeks to build a framework towards improving elective surgery patients' information satisfaction. We propose that an effective waitlist information system (which can meet the information needs of waiting patients) empowers patients, creating a sense of autonomy and control for their own health situation, reducing their stress and uncertainty, improving their sense of perceived equity and power (relative to the healthcare authorities who manage the waitlist) and eventually improves patient satisfaction towards waiting.