Exploring patient's experiential values and its impact on service quality assessment by Indian consumers in public health institution: A qualitative study

Abstract

Satisfying patients is one of the essential facets of healthcare initiatives by any nation. The provision of high‐quality services is indispensable for the success of any service provider. This article aims to help determine experiential values that would aid in understanding the concept of healthcare quality assessment which has long been a means of controversy in practice and academic literature. Patient's experiential values, both extrinsic and intrinsic, impact the way patients assess the quality in terms of the service benefits received by them. This article has adopted a qualitative method to find and develop a patient‐centric quality assessment framework. Ten interviews were conducted with patients admitted more than a day in the private ward of a public hospital and their relatives who accompanied them (i.e., five patients and five relatives). Nvivo 12 Pro generates themes from the interviews and then triangulates with the observations and literature. With the help of this study, we could find the extrinsic and intrinsic factors that help in assessing the service quality. The intrinsic factors namely: belief, trust, safety, convenience, and confidence and extrinsic factors namely: cleanliness, facilities, access, and service delivery prove helpful in service quality assessment. Practitioners and policymakers can adapt this study to increase performance and deliver patient‐centered services.