Assessing Quality of Healthcare Service by the SERVQUAL Model: A Case Study of a Field Hospital

Document Type : Original Research

Authors

1 Department of Health Services Management, School of Public Health, Baqiyatallah University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

2 Hospital Management Research Center, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

3 Research Center for Health Services Management, Institute for Futures Studies in Health, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran

4 Department of Health Management and Economics, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

5 Baqiyatallah University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

6 Research Center for Modeling in Health, Institute for Futures Studies in Health, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran- Department of Health Management and Economics, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Aims: Identifying quality gap of services provided by hospital lead to preparing improvement projects and programs. This study intends to determine the quality gap in healthcare services provided by Shahid Elmi Field Hospital from the view point of Patients.

Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 100 patients admitted to the hospital in 2011 were selected randomly for the study. The data gathered through SERVQUAL Standard Questioner. The content validity and reliability was confirmed by specialist opinions and Cronbach's alpha coefficient, respectively. Data analysis was conducted using descriptive statistics and two-sample t, Pearson correlation and ANOVA tests, using SPSS version 18.

Results: According to the patients' views, there is a positive quality gap in delivered services. The highest mean score of the negative and positive quality gap were related to Responsiveness (-0.02) and access (0.035) respectively. There was a significant relation between the frequency of referral and the quality empathy (p=0.05).

Conclusion: According to the results, the delivered services of the studied Field hospital is higher than the expectations of patients. It is recommended that processes related to delivery of services, in all dimensions of services’ quality particularly responsiveness and assurance, should be identified and reengineered.

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