Work with citizen appeals as a tool of quality control system in the regional healthcare

Objective: to conduct a comprehensive analysis of citizens appeals and complaints to medical organizations (hereinafter - MO) of the Russian subject. Material and methods. Based on the reporting data, an analysis of the with citizens' appeals work in the Chelyabinsk Region MO for the period 2015-2019 was carried out. Results. An increase in the number of referrals in the study period (from 8397 to 15271) was revealed, where issues of quality (30.7%) and accessibility (29.1 %) of medical care prevail in the thematic structure. At the same time, there is a decrease in appeals recognized as justified (from 8.6 to 4.6%) and an increase in appeals considered without determining the topic (from 19.8 to 30.2%). For the third level MO, a correlation (r=0.99, p=0.011) between the number of complaints considered by the medical commission and recognized as substantiated was determined. Conclusions. 1. The citizens' appeals dynamics is characterized by a pronounced growth with a thematic predominance of complaints about the quality and accessibility of medical care. 2. The third level MO medical commission work with citizens' appeals to contributes to increasing the objectivity of their consideration. 3. A significant number of requests classified as "others" at the stage of consideration requires additional tools for their detail. 4. The increase in complaints may be due to both objective reasons and subjective evaluation of patients in the context of increasing information availability, which requires further investigation.