The Understanding of Indonesian Patients of Hospital Service Quality in Singapore

Abstract

Medical services can be categorized as a credential product. Some Indonesian citizens prefer to go abroad to get their medical treatment. They think that hospitals abroad such as Singapore can provide them with better medical treatment. The purpose of the study is to investigate the understanding of a good service among Indonesian patients who have had medical treatment in Singapore. Most of the previous studies have been focusing on quantitative research in understanding consumers’ perception of service quality. We believe that qualitative research can make a significant contribution to the understanding of service quality in the context of a hospital. The study employs qualitative methodology in collecting information from the informants. In-depth interviews were conducted on 15 informants who have had out-patient or in-patient medical treatment in four hospitals in Singapore. The age of the informants ranged from 19 to 64 years old. Their minimum education was junior high school. The frequency of their visits to a Singaporean hospital ranged from 1 to 12. The main question asked was “What is the informant's understanding of a good quality service in healthcare. The interviews were recorded, transcribed and then analyzed. The research process is reliable and valid in terms of cumulative, communicative, and argumentative validity. Our findings indicate that the dimensions that contribute to good perceptions of service quality are technical, interpersonal, tangibles, access and responsiveness, value, and outcomes. The contribution of our study is the inclusion of the dimension value and sub-dimension of customer orientation on the informants’ understanding of service quality.