Healthcare service quality in private hospitals of India - an empirical assessment from Jammu and Kashmir State

Abstract

This study evaluates the quality of healthcare services provided by private hospitals in Srinagar City of Jammu and Kashmir State of India from the perspective of inpatients. The study made use of SERVQUAL model to make an empirical assessment of the quality of healthcare services provided to the inpatients and determine the gaps between patient's perceptions and expectations of service quality. The differences between mean perceptions and mean expectations of patients were statistically significant (p < 0.01) for all service quality dimensions except for efficiency dimension, implying that the private hospitals in Srinagar were not meeting the expectations of patients. The overall service quality was found to be –0.70, indicating significant shortfalls in service quality. The study gives some valuable insights into the functional service quality of private hospitals and proposes some managerial interventions for the improvement of overall service quality in the private hospitals of the study area.