Background: Iranian healthcare reform plan was devised to improve and expand health care services to Iranian nation and has been implemented since May 2014.
Methods: This qualitative-descriptive study was conducted during May to September 2015 by performing a survey among medical and administrative staff in two governmental-university hospitals in city of Mashhad. In addition to demographic features and employment status of the participants, the survey questionnaire contained two open-questions asking respondents to express their opinion about the advantages and disadvantages of the reform plan. Respondents could provide only 3 entries in answer to each question.
Results: One-hundred and nine respondents participated in this survey. Mean age of the respondents was 31.7±8.3 years, and most of them were men (61.5%). In terms of working position, the majority of participants were physicians (50.4%). The most frequent advantages expressed by the participants were: "maintaining social justice, increase in insurance coverage and reduction of health costs for patients" (59.6%), "increase in patients’ satisfaction of health care services" (27.5%), "increase in revenue received by employed physicians and hospital staff" (24.8%). The most common disadvantages in respondents’ viewpoint were: "increase in the number of patients / crowded hospitals" (59.6%), "great gap between the number of patients and the number of medical personnel, thus increasing the workload of medical staff" (49.5%) and "inadequate infrastructure prior to the implementation of the plan and thus disproportionate facilities for patients after starting the plan"(31.2%).
Conclusion: It is indeed evident that the Iranian healthcare reform plan has lead to great achievements; nonetheless, resolving the problems expressed by the staff of governmental hospitals will increase the utility and efficiency of the plan and will result in bilateral satisfaction between staff and patients.