Abstract
Quality has taken central stage in contemporary organizations and is one of the key areas of competition. Healthcare organizations, in particular, strive to provide better quality services to their patients in order to gain competitive advantage. Researchers and academicians have yet to agree on how to define and measure quality of service. Attempts have been made to develop standards and measurements to determine the degree of quality of services. However, the literature does not contain a model or standards to measure the quality of health care services. The paper in question presents an inclusive model to measure the quality of service of healthcare organizations. In addition to healthcare services (cure and care) the model encompasses teaching aspect of hospitals as well. This model was developed on the basis of an in-depth and careful study of a large (2400 bedded) public sector teaching hospital spread over a period of two years. Data was collected from 400 patients, 250 employees, 200 general public, and 250 students through questionnaire followed by in-depth interviews. In addition to all this, various processes and interactions among individuals in the hospital were closely observed. Hospital records were studied. Anything that possibly could contribute to the quality of service in hospital was placed under one of the three dimensions of the model. Since the model has been inductively developed through data triangulation, it can safely be used to measure the quality of health care services with a good deal of accuracy.
Highlights
Since 1990s many service companies have focused on quality as a differentiation strategy to enhance effectiveness and have achieved competitive advantage in the market
The emphasis on functional quality attributes is mentioned as the American perspective of quality of service while additional aspects other than the process of service delivery are considered as the European perspective
For instance, the quality of a service as in the eyes of customers comprises of three dimensions: technical, functional, and image (Gronroos, 1984)
Summary
Since 1990s many service companies have focused on quality as a differentiation strategy to enhance effectiveness and have achieved competitive advantage in the market. The study identifies some cure/care elements such as accuracy of diagnostic services, preventable medical errors, medical advice, medicines quality, providing care by relatives or attendants, satisfaction of attendants, free of cost provision of meal and medicines that profoundly affect quality of services produced by healthcare organizations. These factors have not been highlighted in previous studies as such. Patient satisfaction cannot be measured by how much times he/she will return in hospital, but it is likely to be measured by how much times he/she will return for reasons that are related with a medical problem that he/she has faced in the past
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