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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 research aimed to create inventive principles in managing quality and innovation systems that can be used as a guide for the development of effective innovation projects in hospitals.

Total quality and innovation management in healthcare (TQIM-H) framework and theory of inventive problem-solving (TRIZ) were integrated with results from in-depth interviews with 30 healthcare experts, resulting in TQIM-H inventive principle. The developed inventive principle was validated using 50 effective innovation projects from one of the largest healthcare conglomerates in Southeast Asia.

The TQIM-H inventive principle consisted of 7 dimensions and 72 procedures for creating innovation in hospitals under the medical quality framework. The principle effectively helps innovators develop innovative solutions that still strictly comply with medical guidelines.

Innovation is recognized as a critical factor that helps organizations adapt to global changes and increases the potential for competition, especially in hospitals. However, creating innovation in hospitals has a lower success rate than in other industries because, in general, ineffective innovation development strategies are used and the created innovation is not aligned with regulations and restrictions regarding healthcare quality in the healthcare system.

Healthcare is indispensable for any civilisation to attain a good quality of life and well-being on both mental and physical levels. The healthcare domain primarily falls under pharma, medical, biotechnology, and nursing. Also, other fields may be aligned with these primary fields. Healthcare amasses the contemporary trends and knowledge of upcoming techniques to improve healthcare processes. The practitioners are primarily doctors, nurses, specialists and health professionals, hospital administrators, and health insurance.

It is a fundamental attribute needed for any society to attain good quality of life and well-being in mental and physical health. It is a fundamental right of people to receive good healthcare where drug treatment and hospitalization are available at a nominal cost, as a requirement of today’s modern era. There appears to be a significant disparity in the availability of good healthcare in rural areas compared to urban in India. Even though we enter the digital era with the facilities offered in Industry 4.0 and other advanced technologies brings about a significant change of overall processing within healthcare systems. During the pandemic of COVID-19, there has been digital transformation with success globally. Healthcare cooperatives are a new norm to support the healthcare systems globally. The chapter discusses Gampaha healthcare cooperative and reviews Ayushman Sahakar scheme in India. The reforms require time to evolve.

The purpose of the study is to measure the performance of Indian hospitals, both operationally and financially, by using hospital KPI's. The assessment is predominantly done by linking it to the existing Lean practices in Indian hospitals.

An empirical study based on cross-sectional survey of hospital managers and specialists in various private healthcare facilities across India was conducted to validate the proposed Lean framework. From an extensive literature survey, the authors identified quality, delivery, efficiency, accessibility and patient centeredness to be the main operational performance (OP) indicators for hospitals. Business or financial performance was measured based on parameters which are average revenue per occupied bed (ARPOB), earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) and operating revenue. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was carried out using a specialized technique, called Structural Equation Modelling(SEM) and an explicit factor structure was hypothesized.

Management commitment towards Lean in hospitals is statistically proven to have impacted operational and financial performance. However, leanness in technology and business processes showed no statistical significance on either operational or financial performance parameters. Hospital stakeholders showed statistical significance on though it had no impact on the financial performance. Results obtained from the statistical analysis indicate a positive impact of hospital Lean practices on timely delivery of services and improved service quality. Efficiency, accessibility of services and patient centered behavior in hospital operations could not be statistically proven to have impacted the financial performance.

Effectiveness of Lean management (LM) principles in improving hospital operations is largely dependent on patient centered behavior. Empowered employees who are trained to add value from a customer view point, make hospital operations safe and improved. Properly trained and communicated employees who are committed to quality improvements can make a positive impact on patients' quality of life and thus positively impact the society. The study lists ways to attain the required outcomes.

This paper is among the very few that has attempted to suggest ways to link implementation of Lean practices more effectively in Indian hospitals to improve hospital performance at operational and financial levels.

The main purpose of this study is to provide healthcare institutions with a management accounting framework that helps them achieve their quality goals and cost targets when providing services under bundled payment schemes.

After providing a theoretical framework on both bundled payments and target costing, the success factors of the former are compared with the principles of the latter in order to analyze the compatibility and complementarity of these models. Afterwards, an example of their potential combination in practice is introduced and ideas for future research are suggested.

It is concluded that, apart from presenting similar underlying goals as regards quality and cost, bundled payments and target costing display elements in common that make them compatible from a theoretical standpoint.

Because bundled payments models are relatively new, studies on their compatibility with managerial techniques emerging from industries other than healthcare do not abound in the literature.

This purpose of the study is to investigate enablers of building agility capabilities in healthcare organisations in developing countries. The key research questions are: (1) What are the key enablers for building healthcare agility? (2) Is there an interdependence among the enablers of healthcare agility? (3) What is the driving and dependence power of the enabling factors of healthcare agility?

The enablers for building capabilities of organisational agility were identified from the extant literature. Perceptual responses for pair-wise comparison of identified enablers were collected from 17 clinical and non-clinical professionals working in Indian hospitals through online interviews. Participants were selected from India which supposedly represents the socioeconomic contexts and healthcare systems in developing economies. Next, the data was analysed using multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) techniques to develop a structural framework depicting the enablers and their interdependence.

The TISM framework showed that the two most influential enablers of healthcare agility in developing countries are policy and regulatory support and strategic commitment and resource availability. The results were based on the analysis of four enablers identified from the literature. The results of MICMAC analysis revealed the driving and dependence power of each enabler and classified the enablers into driving, autonomous, dependence and linkage groups.

The study will help stakeholders and academics in the healthcare domain in devising effective strategies for building agility within healthcare systems and processes.

The study contributes to the service operations literature on building agile systems for dynamic and complex service environments.

The current study aims at developing a conceptual framework containing original dimensions of SERVQUAL and adding two modified dimensions: patient safety and medical professionalism in healthcare service quality (HSQ) model.

An extensive review of HSQ literature pertaining to its dimensions and models with respect to content analysis and bibliometric studies of service quality in healthcare and SERVQUAL in healthcare were performed on 47 relevant studies, 4,689 and 529 documents after applying inclusion and exclusion criteria. Google Scholar and Scopus were the primary sources to find the relevant documents.

The content analysis was conducted to group HSQ dimensions into seven themes. Co-occurrence analysis of author keywords was performed in VOSviewer to find the links between service quality, SERVQUAL and proposed dimensions. Organization and analysis of different HSQ models and dimensions emerged from the literature result in a comprehensive conceptual framework comprising modified dimensions of healthcare service quality – medical professionalism and patient safety.

SERVQUAL is a widely accepted, tested and validated model in perceiving HSQ from the lenses of patients. But it does not cover the complex nature of healthcare service, thus requiring modification and the addition of new contextual dimensions. Therefore, a comprehensive conceptual framework is developed to validate and test quantitatively.

The objective of this study is to systematically identify, categorize and assess the driving factors and interdependencies associated with various types of healthcare waste. The study specifically focuses on waste that has been managed or is recommended for treatment through the application of Lean Six Sigma (LSS) methodologies.

To accomplish the study’s objectives, interpretive structural modeling (ISM) was utilized. This analytical tool aided in quantifying the driving power and dependencies of each form of healthcare waste, referred to as “enablers,” as well as their related variables. As a result, these enablers were classified into four distinct categories: autonomous, dependent, linkage and drivers or independents.

In the healthcare sector, the “high cost” (HC) emerges as an autonomous variable, operating with substantial independence. Conversely, variables such as skill wastage, poor service quality and low patient satisfaction are identified as dependent variables. These are distinguished by their low driving power and high dependency. On the flip side, variables related to transportation, production, processing and defect waste manifest strong driving forces and minimal dependencies, categorizing them as independent factors. Notably, inventory waste (IW) is highlighted as a salient issue within the healthcare domain, given its propensity to engender additional forms of waste.

Employing the ISM model, along with comprehensive case study analyses, provides a detailed framework for examining the complex hierarchies of waste existing within the healthcare sector. This methodological approach equips healthcare leaders with the tools to accurately pinpoint and eliminate unnecessary expenditures, thereby optimizing operational efficiency and enhancing patient satisfaction. Of particular significance, the study calls attention to the key role of IW, which often acts as a trigger for other forms of waste in the sector, thus identifying a crucial area requiring focused intervention and improvement.

This research reveals new insights into how waste variables are structured in healthcare, offering a useful guide for managers looking to make their waste-reduction strategies more efficient. These insights are highly relevant not just for healthcare providers but also for the administrators and researchers who are helping to shape the industry. Using the classification and ranking model developed in this study, healthcare organizations can more easily spot and address common types of waste. In addition, the model serves as a useful tool for practitioners, helping them gain a deeper, more detailed understanding of how different factors are connected in efforts to reduce waste.

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.

This study aims to identify empirically proven strategies for reducing healthcare supply chain inventory costs.

The author conducted in-depth interviews in 80 hospitals covering different supply chains. The author treated the healthcare firm as the unit of analysis and examined Vrat's taxonomy of inventory models based on the static and dynamic complexity theories of inventory models to identify an appropriate approach. The author addressed 33 highly priced and moderately priced stock-keeping units from 1,432 items and test several inventory policies. Next, the author applied combinations of inventory models, testing probabilistic hybrid inventory models.

The study finds that medical supplies, equipment, and medications are indispensable for a quality healthcare system. Hence, healthcare supply chain management (SCM) professionals must adopt basic inventory cost-reduction strategies, implementing inventory software functionalities effectively and efficiently. This study shows that probabilistic hybrid inventory techniques in healthcare SCM effectively determine an optimal stocking level, significantly reducing costs.

This study analyzes data from primary care and (to some extent) secondary care institutions. Although tertiary and quaternary care systems do not represent a large portion of the healthcare system, future research should also address these highly specialized organizations' needs.

This study proposes practical strategies to help continuously improve supply chain operations in healthcare organizations worldwide.

This study suggests probabilistic hybrid inventory models as empirically proven solutions for evaluating stock-keeping units in the healthcare sector. In doing so, the study provides a new healthcare supply chain approach, proposing a modified taxonomy of inventory models.