Quality of inpatient care in public and private hospitals in Sri Lanka.

Objective: To compare the quality of inpatient clinical care in public and private hospitals in Sri Lanka.

Methods: A retrospective, cross-sectional comparison was done of inpatient quality, in a sample of 11 public and 10 private hospitals in three of 25 districts. Data were collected for 55 quality indicators from medical records of 2523 public and 1815 private inpatient admissions.

The quality of outpatient primary care in public and private sectors in Sri Lanka--how well do patient perceptions match reality and what are the implications?

Objective: To compare the quality of clinical care and patient satisfaction in public and private outpatient primary care services in Sri Lanka.

Methods: A prospective, cross-sectional comparison was done by direct observation of patient encounters and exit interviews of outpatients in 10 public hospital general outpatient clinics and 66 private practitioner clinics in three districts of Sri Lanka. A total of 1027 public sector patients and 944 private sector patients were surveyed.