Patient Satisfaction with a Tertiary Hospital in Egypt using a HCAHPS-Derived Survey.

STUDY DESIGN: Retrograde cross-sectional study. OBJECTIVE: To assess patient satisfaction and outcomes in polytraumatized patients in EL-Demerdash hospital. BACKGROUND: This is the first study that assessed patient satisfaction with a tertiary hospital in Egypt. Ain Shams University Surgery Hospital, which is one of the largest hospitals in Egypt and serves millions of patients each year, was the site of the study. METHODS: A version of the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey was used to query 361 patients from November 2015 until July 2018 Survey questions were divided into the following categories: communication with doctors, responsiveness of hospital staff, cleanliness of the hospital environment, quietness of the hospital environment, pain management, communication about medicines, discharge information, overall rating of the hospital, and willingness to recommend the hospital. RESULTS: A total of 361 patients were interviewed. The results showed both positive and negative levels of satisfaction. The positive results included no delay in admission, friendly staff including nurses and doctors, better patient outcomes regarding pain management and adverse side effects, and the overall rating of the hospital was good, which reflected patient satisfaction. The negative findings were lack of proper communication between the medical staff and patients. Patients indicated they did not get a satisfactory explanation of their prescribed drug doses and drug adverse effects. In addition, they did not get enough instruction on what to do after being released from the hospital. CONCLUSION: The medical staff at Ain Shams University Surgery Hospital should focus more on the patient's own preferences and communicate better with patients. We recommended that the hospital organize regular communication skills courses for medical students, physicians, and nurses. Patients should understand the discharge report and indications and side effects of the medications before leaving the hospital.

Modeling framework for piezoelectrically actuated MEMS tunable lenses.

WWe report a modeling framework for evaluating the performance of piezoelectrically actuated MEMS tunable lenses. It models the static opto-electromechanical coupling for symmetric configurations of piezoelectric actuators based on the laminated-plate theory, linear piezoelectricity, and ray tracing. With these assumptions, it helps to find geometrical parameters for actuators on clamped square or circular diaphragms that give a diffraction-limited tunable lens with minimum F-number. The tunable lens' optical performance and its focusing capability, alone and in combination with a paraxial fixed lens, were calculated in terms of object distance and actuation voltage. Using the modeling framework, we confirmed that the modulation transfer function for objects located at different distances remains the same after voltage adjustment.