The delivery of a new health service and the patient management approach

Growing demand for health care has increased interest in improving the attention on quality for health services. The quality of health services is founded on patient satisfaction that requires his/her active role in the care process delivery. In this context the main aim of this work is to investigate how the introduction of an innovative service (Acute Pain Service) implies a review of the internal processes and a new approach to manage the relationship with the patient. The research is founded on a systematic combination of the continuous interaction between theory and the empirical world. The research adopted a case study approach as a suitable method for studying the process of service innovation that characterize Humanitas Mater Domini Hospital (Castellanza - Italy). The research is founded on an explorative research that implied several steps 1) participant observation of the service encounters 2) semi-structured interviews to patients 3) semi structured interviews to nurses, doctors and managers involved in new service delivery in order to map the different processes (blueprint). The main results concern the alignment of different health operators’ perspective. The combining of different maps allowed the emerging of a new patient’s management approach. The offering of Acute Pain Service increased the quality of all health services delivered by the hospital raising the satisfaction of patient’s needs.