Abstract: PURPOSE: To provide measures to dispose of unsatisfactory service links for outpatients, and to optimize the service flow of department of stomatology. METHODS: Four hundred and seventy-nine questionnaires were delivered in Shanghai Ninth People’s Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine. The questionnaires included 15 questions relating to general experience in department of stomatology and assessment on separate link of service flow. 5-point grades were set up for each question. Descriptive statistics analysis, Student’s t test and analysis of variance were performed using SPSS13.0 software package. RESULTS: The general satisfaction rate was 4.68. The lowest grades were given when the outpatients waited for too long, shuttled among different sections, and the attending doctors gave little explanation concerning diagnosis and treatment. CONCLUSIONS：Measures such as examination by appointment at specific period of time, post-pay examination, more humanistic triage, establishment of integrated section of stomatology, more reasonable sequence of examination should be adopted to optimize outpatient service flow. By doing so, outpatients’ experience of dental care will be effectively improved.

Key words: Stomatological department, Service flow, Satisfaction rate