Effects of Human Resource on Quality Service Delivery of Mission Hospitals in Mery County, Kenya

Abstract

Prudent human resource management is at the core of every successful entity whether private, for profit, public, faith based and not-for-profit organizations. The human resource is the driver of other resources towards organizational development and harmonization of service delivery. This study endeavoured to explore the role of human resource in facilitating quality delivery of services in mission hospitals in Meru County of Kenya. The population were stakeholders of the mission hospitals, both internal and external clients including the chief executive officers (CEOs), Finance and Human Resource officers, public relations officers and other staff internally and, patients, suppliers and neighbours as external stakeholders. There were eight mission hospitals in the County and all of them were included in the survey. The design was a descriptive study with both purposive judgmental sampling at selection of top-level respondents and simple random sampling among the respondents at other levels. Piloting of the study instruments was carried out at Wamba hospital in the neighbouring Isiolo county which is also a mission hospital to test and improve them. Data collection was through structured questionnaires which were administered through drop and pick method or by research assistants on behalf of those who could not directly react to them like patients and some neighbours. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 23 and descriptive statistics used to interpret and describe the findings. Correlation analysis was done to establish the relationship between the dependent and the independent variables and significance established at 95 percent. The findings revealed that there was positive correlation between human resource and quality of service delivery in mission hospitals in Meru County (R=0.71, F=21.397, P=0.00). Human resource was critical to organizational success in determining customer royalty and repeat visits through the quality of services offered by competent, committed and skilled staff that lead to positive word of mouth marketing of hospitals. The study recommended greater emphasis on customer care, improved human resource management for quality service to enable the hospitals retain and attract more clients. Studies on the same in private and public hospitals were advocated. Keywords: Human Resource, Quality Service Delivery, Mission hospitals, DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/14-6-05 Publication date: March 31 st 2022