Application of standardized patients in health service quality assessment: a review on research progress

Assessment of health service quality is an important prerequisite for improving health service quality, and the use of standardized patients (SPs) is considered to be the gold standard for evaluating health service quality, which can effectively capture the real performance of health service providers. Application of SPs in health service quality assessment is mainly focused on primary health care, doctor - patient communication, and pharmaceutical practice. SPs method is more comprehensive, direct and accurate than the information collected from medical records, but it needs a lot of human, material and financial resources and involves complex ethical issues. Therefore, it is suggested that moral hazard should be fully considered when conducting SPs surveys, and case scripts should be designed scientifically and the standardization of SPs training should be strengthened. In addition, the effectiveness of standardized patients should be validated.