Ana Godoy, Lecturer in Health Economics at the University of Extremadura, Spain and visiting research fellow at CaHRU, presented her thesis “Four essays about quality in the delivery of healthcare” last week to obtain her international doctorate.

Ana’s thesis considered the importance of quality indicators in primary healthcare, and included the development of a weighted measurement scale of patient satisfaction with healthcare (the w-HEALTHQUAL), a multi-level analysis of patients’ satisfaction with primary healthcare in the Extremadura region of Spain, and an investigation into the use of various patient reported outcome measures (PROMs) in the analysis of hospital performance in the UK.

After giving a detailed presentation of her work and responding to questions from the international panel, which included Drs. Coral Sirdifield and Zahid Asghar from CaHRU, Ana was successfully awarded her international doctorate. She now plans to build on her studies through future research at the University of Extremadura.

By Dr Coral Sirdifield