Dear Editor, The COVID-19 virus is amemberof the coronavirus family. The virus is highly contagious and has a very high risk of infection. It rapidly spread worldwide, and the subsequent global public health emergency was declared a pandemicbytheWorld Health Organization(WHO)onJanuary 30, 2020 (1). The virus has put a lot of pressure on countries’,health systems (2, 3). New variants of the virus have been discovered worldwide, and efforts have been made to manage the virus. Countries’,efforts to manage COVID-19, including general vaccination, national lockdowns (4), public education (5), and public health recommendations, have had practical implications. One of the best ways to manage and end the COVID-19 pandemic is universal vaccination. It is also one of the best ways to counteract the mutations of the COVID-19 virus...

Introduction and purpose: The quality of healthcare services holds a significant position in the healthcare system. Understanding patients' expectations and perceptions is essential for improving the quality of health services. The present study aimed to assess the quality of healthcare services in public (governmental) teaching hospitals of Ferdows using the HEALTHQUAL model in 2019. Methods: This descriptive-analytical (cross-sectional) study was conducted in two public (governmental) teaching hospitals in Ferdows. The study population consisted of 350 hospitalized patients who were selected via convenience sampling in 2019. The patients’ perceptions and expectations regarding the quality of hospital services were evaluated using the HEALTHQUAL questionnaire, which assesses four dimensions: environment, human interactions, effectiveness, and efficiency. Data were analyzed in SPSS software (version 24) using independent t-tests, one-way ANOVA, and mean comparison tests. Results: The study reported the overall mean quality score of hospital services as moderate to high. A significant difference was observed between the mean perception score (3.83±0.49) and the mean expectation score (4.54±0.56) across all dimensions of healthcare service quality (P<0.001). Conclusion: As evidenced by the obtained results, patients' mean scores of perception of service quality were notably lower than their mean expectation scores, indicating a significant gap between the two domains. These results highlight considerable opportunities for improving the quality of healthcare services. Policymakers and hospital administrators should identify and address this gap to implement effective measures for enhancing healthcare service quality.

Background: The main purpose of this study was to identify factors that influence healthcare quality in the Iranian context.Methods: Exploratory in-depth individual and focus group interviews were conducted with 222 healthcare stakeholders including healthcare providers, managers, policy-makers, and payers to identify factors affecting the quality of healthcare services provided in Iranian healthcare organisations.Results: Quality in healthcare is a production of cooperation between the patient and the healthcare provider in a supportive environment. Personal factors of the provider and the patient, and factors pertaining to the healthcare organisation, healthcare system, and the broader environment affect healthcare service quality. Healthcare quality can be improved by supportive visionary leadership, proper planning, education and training, availability of resources, effective management of resources, employees and processes, and collaboration and cooperation among providers.Conclusion: This article contributes to healthcare theory and practice by developing a conceptual framework that provides policy-makers and managers a practical understanding of factors that affect healthcare service quality.

Context: In many healthcare systems, the quality of the healthcare delivered is monitored using a number of “indicators.” In the present review, we investigate studies that address issues with the care delivered by healthcare providers. To do this, we employ indicators of the quality of those healthcare services.Evidence Acquisition: The studies for the review were identified by searching a number of electronic databases, including Cochrane Library, PubMed, Scopus, Ovid (Medline), the Social Sciences Citation Index, SID (Scientific Information Database, or Persian database), and Iran Medex (Persian database). Of 8, 850 studies published between January 1971 and May 2015, 53 met the study criteria and were reviewed. In this study, the following key words were searched, both alone and in combination: health, healthcare, health care, provider*, effectiveness, quality, clinical outcome, patient satisfaction, and quality of life. We also considered healthcare quality indicators such as “clinical outcome, ” “patient satisfaction, ” and “quality of life” for our assessment of the quality of healthcare providers.Results: Of the 53 papers selected, 18 assessed the quality of care provided for cardiovascular disorders, 12 studied cancer conditions, eight dealt with metabolic disorder sand diabetes, six focused on a cute infection, three assessed orthopedics and trauma conditions, two studied pediatric conditions, two assessed obstetrics and gynecology conditions, one dealt with asthma and allergic disease conditions, and one assessed geriatric conditions. In our assessment of improvements in healthcare providers’ performance based on healthcare quality indicators, improvements in clinical outcomes ranged from 26.6% for cancer conditions to 98.8% for pediatric and gynecological conditions. An acceptable level of patient satisfaction was achieved in the range of 30.2% for cancer conditions to 96.0% for pediatric conditions, while improvements to quality of life ranged from 12.5% for cancer conditions to 88.7% for acute infection.Conclusions: Taking account of three indicators for assessing the quality of healthcare providers (clinical outcome, patient satisfaction, and quality of life), the high estim provement level samong providers were observed for pediatric and gynecological conditions, and the lowest improvement levels were found for cancer conditions.