Complaints Handling and Patient Feedback [T-12-EN]

Complaints Handling and Patient Feedback [T-12-EN]

Unresolved patient complaints are not merely administrative failures — they are early warning signals for systemic safety risks. Research published in the BMJ and cited in WHO patient safety frameworks consistently links unaddressed dissatisfaction to avoidable adverse events, erosion of patient trust, and diminished care-seeking behaviour. In the South Caucasus region, where health system accreditation is accelerating under Georgia’s National Health Care Quality and Patient Safety Programme, the capacity to capture, analyse, and act on patient feedback has shifted from good practice to a formal regulatory expectation. Yet across many facilities, complaint data remain fragmented, unaudited, and structurally disconnected from the management decisions that could drive improvement.

This course is grounded in the requirements of ISO 9001:2015 Clause 9.1.2 (customer satisfaction monitoring), ISO 10002:2018 (guidelines for complaints handling in organisations), and Joint Commission International (JCI) standards governing patient rights and quality measurement. Teaching draws on case studies from accredited facilities in Georgia and comparable lower-middle-income health systems, using a structured problem-based methodology that moves participants from conceptual understanding to the design and operation of a fully auditable feedback loop. Instructional content is aligned with WHO’s framework for people-centred health services and the Sustainable Development Goal 3.8 target on quality universal health coverage.

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Distinguish between reactive complaint management and a proactive, ISO 10002-compliant patient feedback system, and articulate the governance implications of each approach for their facility.
• Design a structured complaint intake and triage protocol — including documentation templates, acknowledgement timelines, and escalation pathways — consistent with JCI patient rights standards.
• Implement a root-cause classification system that categorises complaints by service domain, severity, and recurrence frequency to support accurate longitudinal tracking.
• Apply quantitative and qualitative analytical methods — including Pareto analysis and thematic coding — to identify statistically significant complaint patterns within monthly and quarterly data sets.
• Construct a management review report that presents patient satisfaction indicators, complaint trend data, and corrective action outcomes in a format suitable for QMS review meetings and external audit.
• Evaluate the effectiveness of corrective and preventive actions (CAPA) arising from complaint investigations, using measurable closure criteria and re-audit timelines aligned with ISO 9001:2015 Clause 10.2.

Who Should Attend

This course is designed for quality managers, patient relations officers, and senior reception staff responsible for the receipt, documentation, or escalation of patient feedback in outpatient clinics, hospitals, diagnostic centres, and primary care facilities. It is equally relevant to department heads and clinical leads who participate in management review processes or who oversee corrective action implementation. Professionals working toward or maintaining JCI accreditation, ISO 9001 certification, or compliance with Georgia’s mandatory quality assurance requirements will find the content directly applicable to their operational responsibilities.

Course Structure

This self-paced online course comprises four structured modules with an estimated study time of five to six hours, incorporating narrated instructional content, annotated document templates, and scenario-based exercises drawn from real facility contexts in Georgia and the wider region. Participants complete a summative assessment requiring a minimum score of 75% to receive a GMJ Academy certificate of completion, which carries CPD credit recognised under the continuing medical education requirements of the Georgian Medical Chamber.