HIRA Introduces Patient Experience Evaluation Grading for the First Time... 57 Hospitals Receive Top Grade

Evaluation to Expand to General Hospitals and Above Starting from the Sixth Round

The Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service (HIRA) announced on July 31 that, for the first time since implementing the Patient Experience Evaluation in 2017, it has assigned evaluation grades to individual medical institutions and made them public.

HIRA conducted the fifth Patient Experience Evaluation over a five-month period from August to December of last year, targeting inpatients at 376 tertiary general hospitals and general hospitals nationwide. The survey targeted adult inpatients aged 19 and over. It was conducted via a mobile web questionnaire, which covered 26 items, including evaluation of doctors and nurses, medication and treatment processes, emotional support, patient safety and hospital environment, protection of patient rights, and overall assessment. A total of 130,435 individuals completed the survey.

2025 (5th) Patient Experience Evaluation Grade Status. Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service

The evaluation grades are divided into five levels at 5-point intervals, based on each institution's overall score, from 90 points or more down to less than 75 points. Out of the 376 institutions surveyed, excluding two that had closed or were not sampled and 11 with fewer than 50 valid responses, grades were assigned to 363 institutions. As a result, 57 institutions (15.7%) received a Grade 1, 85 (23.4%) received Grade 2, 129 (35.5%) received Grade 3, 80 (22.1%) received Grade 4, and 12 (3.3%) received Grade 5. HIRA explained that the introduction of the grading system, moving beyond simply publishing scores, is designed to help the public more easily and intuitively understand the results.

The total number of survey responses also increased significantly. Of the 630,487 people eligible for the evaluation, 130,435 responded, a marked increase over the fourth evaluation’s 64,246 respondents. The response rate rose to an average of 20.7%, up 7.1 percentage points from the previous fourth evaluation’s 13.6%.

The overall score was 87.54 points, with all seven evaluation areas averaging over 80 points. By category, the overall assessment scored the highest at 89.31 points, followed by the nurse category (88.99 points), patient safety and hospital environment (88.86 points), protection of patient rights (87.70 points), doctor category (86.89 points), and medication and treatment process (86.35 points). The newly added emotional support category scored the lowest at 82.37 points among the seven categories. Compared with the fourth evaluation, scores rose in all categories.

Looking at individual survey items, identity verification of patients scored the highest at 91.40 points, while consolation and empathy regarding disease scored the lowest at 82.37 points. For the item on information about post-discharge precautions and treatment planning, the response scale changed from two options (yes/no) to four options (ranging from "not at all" to "always"), yielding a score of 86.03 points, which is 8.46 points lower than the fourth evaluation.

Some items showed improvement with each successive evaluation round. The item on providing information related to ward round times rose from 76.96 points in the first round to 84.76 points in the fifth round. The item on explaining the reasons for medication, tests, and procedures increased from 82.97 points in the first round to 86.37 points in the fifth, indicating a gradual improvement in safeguarding patients’ right to know.

The aggregate score for the 91 institutions that have participated since the first evaluation was 90.79 points, which is 3.25 points higher than the overall fifth evaluation score of 87.54 points. The scores for each area and survey item also largely exceeded the average across all institutions, illustrating that accumulated experience in participating in the evaluation leads to better patient experience evaluation results.

The results can be checked on HIRA's website and through the Hospital Evaluation Integrated Portal app.

Starting with the sixth round of evaluation, to be conducted from September to November this year, HIRA plans to expand the number of institutions covered to 887 by including specialty hospitals and all hospitals with at least 100 beds. The results will be released in July next year. Tertiary general hospitals and general hospitals will be assigned grades, while for smaller hospitals, scores for each of the seven areas will be made public.

HIRA President Hong Seungkwon commented, “This year, for the first time, we publicly disclosed evaluation grades so that the public can understand patient experience evaluation results more easily and intuitively.” He added, “We will strive to provide trustworthy evaluation information and help spread a patient-centered medical culture.” He continued, “From the sixth evaluation round, we will expand assessments to hospitals, and further, aim to incorporate treatment outcomes based on patient experience into future evaluations.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.