Abstract

Background & Objectives:

Modern medicine and the machinery for supplying health-care services to the general public have undergone dramatic changes in the past century. In light of these changes, the need for serious and systematic study of the patterns of clients’ complaints about health-care providers and other public services stems both from the moral and legal obligation of public systems to provide optimal services on an egalitarian basis.

The proposed research will focus on the complaint patterns of a number of sectors which are usually defined as weak or under-privileged: Older persons, People with Disabilities and New Immigrants (Olim) - who constitute important and relatively large groups of customers of the health-care services, but about whom there exists very little information, both in Israel as well as world wide.

Working hypothesis:

The working hypothesis of this research is that the awareness and usage of the complaints mechanisms within the health care system by the defined minority groups is lower than the general population. The hypothesis is that these defined groups suffer socio-demographic as well as procedural obstacles which prevent them from utilizing the public complaint mechanisms, thus, making them "unseen" to the public health-care complaint system

Methodology:

This research will use a quantitative method: using a multi-layer, representative national sample, or each of the minority groups, of 500 persons who actually report that they have reason to complain against the health care system. The closed questionnaire will be administered via a telephone survey. 

Significance: