Search results

This study aims to deal with the paucity of studies in the stages of the development of loyalty behaviour of customers in the healthcare context by incorporating three crucial service quality dimensions (physical environment, personnel quality and technical quality) and also investigating trust and commitment as mediating factors.

Survey data were obtained from 420 respondents admitted to government hospitals in Kerala employing a convenience sampling method. The formulated hypotheses were tested using partial least square structural equation modelling.

Results indicate that patient satisfaction, trust and commitment can create favourable behavioural intentions amongst patients. When patients reveal higher trust, they are more inclined to value healthcare services and willing to commit to a long-term relationship, resulting in increased patient loyalty.

Organisational efforts should improve trust and commitment and build a good relationship between service providers and patients. Efforts should be taken to raise the standard of technical and personnel aspects, and a focus on physical infrastructure should also be considered to build a favourable behavioural intention to revisit and positive referrals.

This is the first empirical study to analyse technical quality, personnel quality and physical environment along with the mediating effect of trust, and commitment in a four-stage loyalty development model in the healthcare context of Kerala, India.

The purpose of this study is to summarize the available pool of literature on service quality to identify different dimensions of service quality in the healthcare industry and understand how it is measured. The study attempts to explore the research gaps in the literature about different service quality dimensions and patient satisfaction.

A systematic literature review process was followed to achieve the objectives of the study. Various inclusion and exclusion criteria were used to select relevant research articles from 2000–2020 for the study, and a total of 100 research articles were selected.

The study identified 41 different dimensions of healthcare service quality measurement and classified these dimensions into four categories, namely servicescape, personnel, hospital administration and patients. It can be concluded that SERVQUAL is the most widely used service quality measurement tool.

The study identified that a majority of the researchers deduced a positive relationship between SERVQUAL dimensions and the quality of healthcare services. The findings of study will assist hospital executives in formulating effective strategies to ensure that patients receive superior quality healthcare services.

The purpose of this paper is to determine patient expectation and perception of pharmaceutical care services in order to measure the level of patient satisfaction provided by Indonesia’s health coverage (IHC) system.

A patient satisfaction survey was conducted at primary-level and secondary-level health facilities operating under IHC system. The assessment was performed using a closed-ended questionnaire that had been tested for validity and reliability. The patients’ point of view was evaluated based on their expectation and perception of six dimensions of the pharmaceutical care services they had received. Patient satisfaction was calculated based on the gap between their expectation and their perception.

A total of 602 patients participated in this research. The levels of the patients’ expectation of the pharmaceutical care services provided at primary-level health facilities range from high (3.39) to very high (3.54), whereas at secondary-level health facilities, the range was from low (2.04) to very high (3.75). This indicates that patients have a higher expectation of the provided pharmaceutical care services compared to the actual experience of the healthcare services that they received, resulting in a low value in the measurement of patient satisfaction levels.

The high level of patient expectation is an opportunity for pharmacists at both primary-level and secondary-level health facilities to continue developing pharmaceutical care services. Improving drug information service, patient counseling and reducing patient waiting time can be good ways to increase patient satisfaction within pharmaceutical care services.

The paper aims to considering quality that comes from quality employees taking discretionary efforts, having right perception towards quality, getting satisfied from their contribution. Exploring the relationship of engagement, perception and satisfaction, and mapping the levels and identifying managerial implications for improving the levels.

William Kahn’s employee engagement dimensions, Parasuraman and Zeithaml’s quality dimensions and Harter et al.’s satisfaction dimensions applied and variables framed in health-care context, tested and applied. Survey data collected from randomly selected medical and non-medical employees from south Indian state Tamil Nadu health-care organizations, using structured questionnaire.

Age, experience and roles of the respondents in work have a significant association with the levels. It explores a significant positive relationship of perception, engagement and satisfaction. The study explores an average 28% of employees have high level of engagement, perception (18%) and satisfaction (22%), and the rest fall under moderate and low levels. The roles of the respondents significantly predict the levels.

The study focuses on engagement, perception and satisfaction of employees, not of patients. It registered the responses of trained physicians, nurses and administrative staff. It illustrates human resource strategic importance to improve the levels concerning quality measures.

The purpose of the paper is to describe and analyze differences in patients' quality perceptions of private and public primary care centers in Sweden.

The article explores the differences in quality perceptions between patients of public and private primary care centers based on data from a large patient survey in Sweden. The survey covers seven dimensions, and in this paper the measure Overall impression was used for the comparison. With more than 80,000 valid responses, the survey covers all primary care centers in Sweden which allowed for a detailed analysis of differences in quality perceptions among patients from the different categories of owners.

The article contributes with a detailed description of different types of private owners: not-for-profit and for profit, as well as corporate groups and independent care centers. The results show a higher quality perception for independent centers compared to both public and corporate groups.

The small number of not-for-profit centers (21 out of 1,117 centers) does not allow for clear conclusions for this group. The results, however, indicate an even higher patient quality perception for not-for-profit centers. The study focus on describing differences in quality perceptions between the owner categories. Future research can contribute with explanations to why independent care centers receive higher patient satisfaction.

The results from the study have policy implications both in a Swedish as well as international perspective. The differentiation between different types of private owners made in this paper opens up for interesting discussions on privatization of healthcare and how it affects patient satisfaction.

The main contribution of the paper is the detailed comparison of different categories of private owners and the public owners.

This paper explores the effect of perceived service quality, trust, perceived value and perceived cost on patient satisfaction and loyalty as well as exploring the moderating role of the sociodemographic factors.

The data were gathered from 462 patients via a structured questionnaire, while structural equation modeling was utilized for the analysis.

Results indicated that trust, perceived value and patient satisfaction have important roles in shaping the patient loyalty, while patient satisfaction was found to fully mediate the patient’s perceived service quality. Loyalty relationship was also found to partially mediate the trust–loyalty relationship. Nonetheless, the patient’s satisfaction–loyalty relationship was found to be only moderated by the age factor.

Implications are provided to the Egyptian private hospitals in order for them to formulate improvement plans as well as set higher standards of conduct.

This original research is the first one, up to the researcher knowledge, that explores the drivers of patient satisfaction in the private hospitals in Egypt.

Using data from a continuous and ongoing cross-sectional web survey on hospitalisation service experiences in two Italian regions, the authors used multilevel and multivariate logistic regression models to identify factors related to users' demographics, emotional and informative support, technical and physical aspects of the provision, influencing satisfaction and willingness-to-recommend, before and during a crisis.

The value-in-use, defined in terms of a positive or negative value given by the experience with services, can be evaluated by users and influenced by the context of provision. The authors tested whether and how the value-in-use of services changed in a context of crisis. This study is applied to the healthcare sector during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic, by evaluating the impact of the pandemic on hospitalisation experience.

Overall, analyses of 8,712 questionnaires found a greater value after the pandemic spread. In a time of crisis, technical and informative aspects of care were found to be most valued by patients that may recognise the extraordinary professionalism of workers during the crisis.

This study empirically suggests that context can affect the evaluation of value-in-use by patients during unprecedented circumstances, producing additional value-in-context.

These findings imply that during critical periods where there is less scope for expressions of gratitude and appreciation towards front-line workers, user-reported data can be used for motivating professionals and increase resilience. These results reiterate the need to continue collecting and reporting the service users' voices, including as activity within plans for managing challenging situations.

The level of healthcare system distress, due to the COVID-19 epidemic, positively affects patients' propensity to recommend, which the authors suggest is driven by healthcare services' feelings of reverse compassion. These findings imply that during critical periods where there is less scope for expressions of gratitude and appreciation towards front-line workers, user-reported data can be used for motivating professionals and increase resilience, which can have positive social implications. These results reiterate the need to continue collecting and reporting the service users' voices, including as activity within plans for managing challenging situations.

Research based on the intersection of theoretical and empirical research regarding value-in-use, value-in-context and service quality measured through user experience is scarce, in particular in the healthcare sector. The authors' findings set the direction for future research on the influence of context on value creation and value creation's perception by users, on the concept of reverse compassion and on reverse compassion's impact on organisational well-being, particularly in times of crisis.

Delivering patient-centered healthcare is now seen as one of the basic requirements of good quality care. In this research, the impact of the perceived quality of three experiential dimensions (Physical Environment, Empowerment and Dignity and Patient–Doctor Relationship) on patient's Experiential Satisfaction is assessed.

259 structured interviews were performed with patients in private and public hospitals across Italy. The research methodology is based in testing mediation and moderation effects of the selected variables.

The study shows that: perceived quality of Physical Environment has a positive impact on patient's Experiential Satisfaction; perceived quality of Empowerment and Dignity and perceived quality of Patient–Doctor Relationship mediate this relationship reinforcing the role of Physical Environment on Experiential Satisfaction; educational level is a moderator in the relationship between perceived quality of Patient–Doctor Relationship and overall Satisfaction: more educated patients pay more attention to relational items. Subjective Health Frailty is a moderator in all the tested relationships with Experiential Satisfaction: patients who perceive their health as frail are more reactive to the quality of the above-mentioned variables.

Physical Environment items are enablers of both Empowerment and Dignity and Patient–Doctor Relationship and these variables must be addressed all together in order to improve the value proposition provided to patients. Designing a hospital, beyond technical requirements that modern medicine demands and functional relationships between different medical departments, means dealing with issues like the anxiety of the patient, the stressful working environment for the hospital staff and the need to build a sustainable and healing building.

The study investigates the relationship between hospital environmental factors and the well-being of geriatric in-patients. It aims to identify the impact of architectural design on comfort, safety, privacy and stress levels experienced by elderly patients during their hospital stays.

Employing a mixed-methods approach, the research assesses the experiences of 100 geriatric in-patients across various hospital types through surveys, observational checklists and state anxiety measurements. The methodology involves examining architectural features, patient perceptions and correlations among environmental variables and patient experiences. Statistical analyses, including correlations and chi-square tests, were employed to discern associations between environmental variables and patient experiences.

The research identified key architectural features significantly impacting geriatric patients' experiences. Factors such as sturdy beds, furniture quantity, lighting conditions, proximity to facilities and ward occupancy levels were found to influence spatial, sensory and social comfort. Notably, proximity to facilities and control over the immediate environment were crucial for self-control and safety perceptions. Privacy, highly valued by patients, correlated with the presence of curtains and ward occupancy. Moreover, patient stress levels exhibited correlations with autonomy, privacy and ward occupancy.

This research offers significant insights into the criticality of specific architectural elements in enhancing comfort and reducing stress for geriatric in-patients. These findings hold substantial value for healthcare facility design, emphasizing the need to prioritize certain design aspects to promote the well-being of elderly patients during hospitalization.

User experience is key for measuring and improving the quality of services, especially in high personal and relation-intensive sectors, such as healthcare. However, evidence on whether and how the organizational model of healthcare service delivery can affect the patient experience is at an early stage. This study investigates the relationship between healthcare service provision models and patient experience by focusing on the nursing care delivery.

65 nurses' coordinators were involved to map the nursing models adopted in the healthcare organizations of in an Italian region, Tuscany. This dataset was merged with patient experience measures reported by 9,393 individuals discharged by the same organizations and collected through a Patient-Reported Experience Measures Observatory. The authors run a series of logistic regression models to test the relationships among variables.

Patients appreciate those characteristics of care delivery related to a specific professional nurse. Having someone who is in charge of the patient, both the reference nurse and the supervisor, makes a real difference. Purely organizational features, for instance those referring to the team working, do not significantly predict an excellent experience with healthcare services.

Different features referring to different nursing models make the difference in producing an excellent user experience with the service.

These findings can support managers and practitioners in taking decisions on the service delivery models to adopt. Instead of applying monolithic pure models, mixing features of different models into a hybrid one seems more effective in meeting users' expectations.

This is one of the first studies on the relationship between provision models of high-contact and relational-intensive services (the healthcare services) and users' experience. This research contributes to the literature on healthcare service management suggesting to acknowledge the importance of hybridization of features from different, purely theoretical service delivery models, in order to fit with providers' practice and users' expectations.

• This is one of the first studies on the relationship between provision models of nursing care and patient experience.

• Healthcare services' users appreciate service delivery characteristics identified with “be cared by,” or in other words with having a reference nurse.

• Nursing models' features that relate to the organizations and that providers tend to judge as professionalizing and evolutive, such as team working, appear not key in relation to patient experience.

• Pure models of service delivery are theoretically useful, but hybrid models can better meet users' expectations.

This is one of the first studies on the relationship between provision models of nursing care and patient experience.

Healthcare services' users appreciate service delivery characteristics identified with “be cared by,” or in other words with having a reference nurse.

Nursing models' features that relate to the organizations and that providers tend to judge as professionalizing and evolutive, such as team working, appear not key in relation to patient experience.

Pure models of service delivery are theoretically useful, but hybrid models can better meet users' expectations.