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Meeting the patients' requirements as customers of the health care sector is crucially important as a social responsibility. According to the resource constraints, only an efficient utilisation of health services can provide that purpose. This study aims to develop a quantitative assessment framework for radiology centres as a vital section in healthcare to translate the patients' requirements into service quality specifications. This would help to achieve quality improvement by emphasising the voice of customers.

A literature review is conducted to specify the service quality criteria and the patients' requirements related to healthcare and hospitals. Based on the experts' opinions, these criteria and requirements are later customised for the radiology centres. Moreover, the requirements are categorised into five dimensions of SERVQUAL. The interrelations between service elements are also determined through expert group consensus using Pearson correlation. Afterwards, by applying the QFD method, the relations between the requirements and criteria are explored. Additionally, a customer satisfaction survey is executed in Tehran public hospitals to prioritise these requirements and provide an importance-satisfaction analysis.

Based on the result of the case study, service elements are prioritised for improvement, and practical suggestions are provided using the Delphi technique for quality improvement. In addition, a cause-and-effect diagram is presented to highlight the improvement area and provide enhancement suggestions.

This study is the first empirical attempt to benefit from the VOC in evaluating and enhancing the quality of service delivered to radiology patients. In doing so, the study applies a hybrid approach of QFD and SERVQUAL as well as other tools to highlight the improvement area and provide enhancement suggestions. The findings can be readily used by the practitioners.

The purpose of this study is to capture patients' and employees' perception of quality of care in the Indian private hospitals and to find the possible perceptual gaps between both the groups.

Authors have referred to the Victorian patient satisfaction monitoring (VPSM) scale and studied the responses of 327 patients and 327 employees collected from six private Indian tertiary care hospitals. SPSS v26 software was used to conduct the data reliability test, descriptive analysis and Mann–Whitney U test.

Authors have found significant differences in perceptions of quality of care between the patients and employees in the Indian hospitals. Employees have high positive perceptions towards the provided medical care whereas the patients have less favourable perceptions for many quality indicators.

This study findings help the healthcare managers, practitioners and healthcare workers of the Indian hospitals to understand the perceptions of both the employees and the patients towards healthcare quality elements and help to reduce the existing perceptual gap in the process of providing quality healthcare services.

To the best of authors knowledge, this is one of the pioneering studies conducted in Indian healthcare industry to capture and compare the perceptions of both the employees' and the patients' perceptions of various quality of care elements. This study highlighted the existing perceptual gap between the employees and the patients on various healthcare quality elements and indicated the critical areas for improvement to provide high quality healthcare services.

As healthcare continues to become more expensive and complex, considering the voice of the patient in the design and operation of healthcare practices is important. Wound care and rural healthcare scenarios pose additional complexities for providers and patients. This study sought to identify key determinants of patient service quality in wound care.

Patients at the wound care/ostomy clinic (WOC) in a rural hospital were surveyed using the Kano model. The Kano model enables the categorization of quality attributes based on the attributes' contribution to the subject's overall satisfaction (and dissatisfaction). Chi-square goodness-of-fit testing, multinomial analysis and power analysis were then used to determine the Kano categories for each satisfaction-related attribute.

The analyses resulted in 14 one-dimensional attributes and 3 indeterminable attributes. For the one-dimensional attributes, customer satisfaction is directly proportional to the level of performance for that attribute. The one-dimensional attributes included providing correct care on the first, provision of necessary supplies for care, appropriately qualified medical staff and confidence in care provided by medical staff, among others. Understanding the attributes important to the patient drive patient-centered care, which improves positive patient outcomes and recovery. These attributes can then be used by healthcare professionals to design patient-centric processes and services. This research provides a framework for incorporating the voice of the patient into healthcare services.

While the research methodology can be used in other healthcare settings, the findings are not generalizable to other wound care clinics. This research was conducted in one small, rural hospital. In addition, the sample size was small due to the size of the wound clinic; therefore, an analysis of the differences between demographics could not be performed.

Considering the perspectives of rural wound care patients is important, as the patients are an under-served population with unique challenges related to patient care. The research findings detail rural patients' expectations during wound care treatments, which enable the clinic to focus on improving patient satisfaction. This research contributes to understanding the factors that are important to patient satisfaction in wound care. Further, the methodology presented can be applied to other healthcare settings.

While studies exist using the Kano model in healthcare and the literature is sparse in rural healthcare, this is the first case study using the Kano model in wound care to understand patient preferences.

The prime aim of this research is to examine the mediating effect of patient trust on the relationship between service quality and patient satisfaction in Amman, Jordan.

A convenience sample of patients visiting seven out of the 44 private hospitals in Amman was selected. In total, 385 questionnaires were distributed among patients, with a response rate of 91%. Of these, 35 were disregarded, and the data from the remaining 350 questionnaires were analyzed using SPSS.

The results showed that service quality has a statistically significant effect on patient satisfaction. Furthermore, service quality has a statistically significant effect on patient trust, while there is also a statistically significant effect of patient trust on patient satisfaction. The findings also revealed that patient satisfaction partially mediates the relationship between service quality and patient satisfaction.

Generating more insights in the areas of service quality, patient trust and patient satisfaction while also extending the findings of earlier studies. The prior studies in the literature that focus on customers are given a more advantageous perspective by using Jordanian hospitals as a population to test the model of this research. The majority of past research on service quality, patient satisfaction and patient trust in the healthcare sector has been conducted in western nations.

This study aims to examine the perceptions and evaluations of Muslim COVID-19 survivors and health workers regarding the halal, business and ethical attributes of hospitals during their interactions related to COVID-19 treatment.

Descriptive qualitative research with semi-structured online interviews was used to gather insights from COVID-19 survivors and health workers who treated COVID-19 patients. The findings were then compared with existing literature on hospital services and Sharia attributes.

The study found that patients and health-care workers in hospitals are concerned about whether the hospital follows Sharia law, the quality of health-care and hospital services and the ethical conduct of hospital staff. This is especially true during the COVID-19 pandemic, when patients are more anxious about religious conduct and the afterlife.

Hospitals need to address halal attributes in all aspects of their services for Muslim patients and business attributes such as standard health-care quality, service quality and ethical attributes. Participants indicated that when these needs are met, they are more likely to revisit the hospital and recommend it to others.

This study contributes to understanding the expectations of Muslim patients regarding hospital services that meet Islamic ethical and business requirements. Using the COVID-19 pandemic as a case study broadens the understanding of how to better serve Muslim customers.

The scope of this study is to explore and summarize the pool of dimensions, models and measurement techniques of service quality used in healthcare services and to propose a comprehensive conceptual model for practitioners and researchers.

This research employs a comprehensive review of available literature by using multiple keywords on different electronic repositories using the recommendations of the PRISMA approach for the selection of articles. A critical analysis of available studies helped in compiling a list of core service quality dimensions in healthcare services.

This paper presents a comprehensive account of different dimensions and their measurement items used by various researchers to assess service quality in healthcare systems. Most of the researchers have used SERVQUAL model either in its original or modified form while the others have proposed and used totally different dimensions to assess the service quality in healthcare. Many dimensions are just an existing dimension of SERVQUAL that has undergone a name change while others are completely new. The dimensions used by many researchers have items drawn from more than one dimension of SERVQUAL model. The availability of so many dimensions and models adds to the confusion that researchers and practicing managers experience when determining the appropriate model to be used in their work. To mitigate this confusion, there is a need to develop a comprehensive model; the current work is an attempt to meet this need. Through our analysis, we identify four major service quality dimensions: clinical quality, infrastructural quality, relationship and managerial quality and propose a model named CIRMQUAL.

After exploring all available models in the domain of healthcare, this research presents the best possible areas to enhance the quality of healthcare services. It also enhances the research insights for academicians and working professionals by developing and proposing a comprehensive model for measuring healthcare service quality. The proposed model covers almost all of the service quality dimensions used by other researchers and will make the choice of dimensions/model easy for the future researchers/practitioners interested in measuring and improving the quality of services offered by their healthcare units. Such a comprehensive model has not been developed by any researcher thus far.

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.

Value-based healthcare suggested using patient-reported information to complement the information available in the medical records and administrative healthcare data to provide insights into patients' perceptions of satisfaction, experience and self-reported outcomes. However, little attention has been devoted to questions about factors fostering the use of patient-reported information to create value at the system level.

Action research design is carried out to elicit possible triggers using the case of patient-reported experience and outcome data for breast cancer women along their clinical pathway in the clinical breast network of Tuscany (Italy).

The case shows that communication and engagement of multi-stakeholder representation are needed for making information actionable in a multi-level, multispecialty care pathway organized in a clinical network; moreover, political and managerial support from higher level governance is a stimulus for legitimizing the use for quality improvement. At the organizational level, an external facilitator disclosing and discussing real-world uses of collected data is a trigger to link measures to action. Also, clinical champion(s) and clear goals are key success factors. Nonetheless, resource munificent and dedicated information support tools together with education and learning routines are enabling factors.

Current literature focuses on key factors that impact performance information use often considering unidimensional performance and internal sources of information. The use of patient/user-reported information is not yet well-studied especially in supporting quality improvement in multi-stakeholder governance. The work appears relevant for the implications it carries, especially for policymakers and public sector managers when confronting the gap in patient-reported measures for quality improvement.

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.

Evaluating the operational outcomes of hospitals is critical concerns for hospital managers. The realization of these evaluations through the principles of Total Quality Management (TQM) is important so that decision-makers can base their decisions on rational grounds. To achieve TQM principles, hospitals need innovative processes that can adapt to changing patient expectations. Innovation activities that will lead to business excellence can be achieved with the strategic planning awareness of healthcare professionals. In this study, it is aimed to evaluate the effect of organizational innovation on business excellence and to reveal the role of strategic planning awareness in this relationship in hospitals.

The data were collected using a quantitative questionnaire to 450 healthcare professionals working in private hospitals operating in Istanbul (Turkey). The data were analyzed using the AMOS (Analysis of Moment Structures) 23.0 and SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) for Windows 25.0 program. In addition to the reliability analysis, confirmatory factor analysis was performed using the AMOS program to test the construct validity of the scales. The model established in line with the research hypotheses was tested with path analysis and mediator role analysis.

The results confirm that organizational innovation has a statistically significant and positive effect on strategic planning awareness and business excellence. In addition, it has been determined that strategic planning awareness has a statistically significant and positive effect on business excellence. Moreover, the research model confirms that strategic planning awareness plays a mediating role in the relationship between organizational innovation and business excellence.

The limitation of the study is that it was conducted only in private hospitals. A comparative study that includes the public health sector can further strengthen the research framework.

Hospitals that invest in innovative activities can get the reward of their efforts as business excellence. However, this is affected by the strategic planning awareness of healthcare professionals. Research results present the role of strategic planning awareness on the way to business excellence led by organizational innovation. Achieving business excellence in complex and constantly changing environmental conditions depends on an appropriate strategic plan for hospitals. In order to achieve these goals included in the strategic plans, the education of healthcare professionals that contributes to their strategic perspectives should be supported and their participation in decision-making processes should be ensured.

The research contributes to the literature on the relationship between organizational innovation and business excellence in the health sector. In addition, revealing the role of strategic planning awareness of healthcare professionals in this relationship is the originality of the research. In addition, the research supports the literature that allows performance evaluation in hospitals to be carried out with a business excellence model based on TQM.