A Study on the Customer Perceptions of Quality of Services of a Large Hospital in New Delhi Presentation Transcript

1. A Study on the Customer Perceptions of Quality of Services of a Large Hospital in New Delhi 2. INTRODUCTIONServices sector accounts for ~ 54.2% of the nations GDP (2007). For service-based economies, growth is accomplished by increasing competition and technological advances, thus reinforcing service quality as an important and sustaining competitive advantage . The provision of high-quality services is directly related to -increase in profitsmarket sharecost savingsWith competitive pressures and the increasing necessity to deliver patient satisfaction, the elements of quality control, quality of service, and effectiveness of medical treatment have become vitally important. 3. INTRODUCTIONDefinition of Service Quality: Cronin and Taylor, 1994: a form of attitude representing a long-run overall evaluationParasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry (1985): a function of the differences between expectation and performance along the quality dimensions.Service Quality both technical and functional a key ingredient in the success of service organizations . Technical quality in health care is defined primarily on the basis of the technical accuracy of the diagnosis and procedures. Functional quality relates to the manner of delivery of health-care services. 4. INTRODUCTIONService Quality Measurement ScalesSERVQUAL (Parasuraman, Zeithaml & Berry, 1988)SERVPERF (Cronin &Taylor, 1992)SERVPERF-MPurpose of this study: Measure consumer perceptions of quality of services delivered by a large hospital in Delhi.Evaluate the practical usefulness and the psychometric proprieties of SERVPERF in accessing patients perceptions of the hospital service environment. 5. SERVICE QUALITYDisconfirmation Paradigm Parasuraman, et. al. , 1994Service quality is the gap between consumers perceptions of service performance and level of expectations. The outcome of this process is: Negative disconfirmation - performance rated below level of expectationsPositive disconfirmation - performance evaluated above level of expectationsConfirmation - performance equal to expectations level. There is growing evidence to suggest that this perceived quality is the single most important variable influencing consumers perceptions of value, and that this, in turn, affects their intention to purchase products or services. 6. SERVICE QUALITY MEASUREMENT SCALESWhats not measured cannot be managed.SERVQUALDisconfirmation-basedby Parasuraman, Zeithaml & Berry, 198822 pairs of statements that measure consumers expectations and perceptions of service performanceSERVPERFPerformance-basedBy Cronin & Taylor, 199222 statements that measure consumers perceptions of service performanceSERVPERF-M 7. THE RESEARCH PROBLEMObjectives:Reliability, Dimensionality and Validity Statistics for the SERVPERF scaleReport the Customer Perceptions for

the five dimensions of SERVPERF/SERVQUAL study instrumentReport the Customer Perceptions for Services provided by the doctorsStudy the relation of age to customer perceptions of service quality.Assess whether the Cost of Services is justified.

8. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY Initial Exploratory Research - secondary data and case studies to identify the important factors for customer perceptions of Service Quality.Questionnaire DesigningDemographics 7 QuestionsLikert Scale - 1 means strongly disagree 7 means strongly agreeSERVPERF Questionnaire 22 QuestionsTangibles 4 QuestionsReliability 5 QuestionsResponsiveness 4 QuestionsAssurance 4 QuestionsEmpathy 5 QuestionsQuality of Services provided by Doctors 9 QuestionsOther Questions 4 Questions 9. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY Sample DesigningConvenience SamplingThe respondents were at their homes or workplace but NOT in the hospital.Primary Data CollectionWeb based QuestionnairePaper based QuestionnaireTelephonic interviews to answer the QuestionnaireData AnalysisSPSS v16.0 used for coding and analysis of the data 10. RESULTS and DISCUSSION 11. RESULTS and DISCUSSION (Contd.) 12. RESULTS and DISCUSSION (Contd.)SERVPERF SCALE ATTRIBUTESReliability - property of a measurement instrument that causes it to give similar results for similar inputs. 13. RESULTS and DISCUSSION (Contd.)Dimensionality of the SERVPERF ScaleA Factor analysis was performed. Almost all the items loaded on a single factor in the unrotated component matrix.Validity of the SERVPERF ScaleFace Validity ensured by determining from literatureContent Validity - adapted from the SERVQUAL measure and consensus achieved in the literature 14. RESULTS and DISCUSSION (Contd.)Construct validityFactor Analysis with Varimax Rotation conductedCould not identify any meaningful dimensions that conform to the dimensions recommended by the SERVQUAL instrument. This could be due to the highly correlated nature of the five dimensions of service quality. Predictive ValidityExamined by regressing Overall Service Quality (dependent variable) on the 22 SERVPERF statements scores (independent variables).Strong evidence of the performance ability in explaining the variance in the Overall Service Quality ratings. 15. SERVPERF SCORES 16. SERVPERF SCORES 17. SERVPERF SCORES 18. SERVPERF SCORES 19. SERVPERF SCORES 20. SERVPERF SCORESThe calculated mean Global Service Quality on the SERVPERF scale for the hospital is 4.791. However, the mean Overall Service Quality on the survey is 4.26. This means that the customers may regard

individual service quality attributes higher than when asked for Overall Service Quality.

21. CUSTOMER PERCEPTIONS OF QUALITY OF SERVICES PROVIDED BY DOCTORSScale Attributes Reliabilityand DimensionalityFactor analysis All the items loaded on a single factor in the unrotated component matrix .The reliability, as assessed by Cronbachs alpha, was 0.934.Hence, the scale can be treated as uni-dimensional. 22. CUSTOMER PERCEPTIONS OF QUALITY OF SERVICES PROVIDED BY DOCTORSScale Attributes Reliabilityand DimensionalityFactor analysis All the items loaded on a single factor in the unrotated component matrix .The reliability, as assessed by Cronbachs alpha, was 0.934.Hence, the scale can be treated as uni-dimensional.Factor Analysis - The factors were reduced to two dimensions :Time ConsciousnessService Consciousness 23. CUSTOMER PERCEPTIONS OF QUALITY OF SERVICES PROVIDED BY DOCTORSScale Score 24. AGE AND SERVICE QUALITYIt was observed that older patients have a higher opinion of care provided than others. This contributes to construct validity of satisfaction questionnaires.Null Hypothesis H0: There is no relation between Age and Overall Service Quality perception.Alternate Hypothesis H1: There is a relation between Age and Overall Service Quality perception.Pearson Chi-Square test has a significance of 0.011 (p<0.05). Hence the null hypothesis is rejected. 26. OTHER QUESTIONS 27. SALIENT FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONSNowadays, the customers are highly discerning and they expect hospitals to provide clean and hygienic environment with adequate civic amenities. The hospital needs to take regular measures to upgrade facilities.Reliability of their services has to be improved a great deal if they want to retain their customers. The study shows that the customers do not have faith in the services promised by the hospital.Responsiveness has a mean score of 4.703, again a warning sign for the hospital since this points towards a lack of service functionality in an, essentially, a service organization. 28. SALIENT FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONSThe hospital personnel should always respond to the requests of the customers. This service attribute may be difficult to overcome due to many reasons, like staff shortage. However, this attribute has to be taken seriously by the hospital to improve the perceptions of service quality on the whole and to maintain competitive advantage.The personnel at the hospital are perceived as courteous. Patients expect hospital personnel to be polite and with improved socio-economic status, this expectation becomes more explicit. If the personnel are not perceived to be polite this can be a significant dissatisfier. The personnel need to be counseled and sensitized on this account. With proper feedback, there is tremendous scope of improvement. 29. SALIENT FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONSAn encouraging sign for the hospital since the customers believe that the hospital personnel are professionally capable of solving their queries. Empathy rates the lowest among the service quality dimensions. The medical profession is a grim profession and

empathy towards patients is a cornerstone of the profession. This shows lack of training of staff in empathic behaviour. The hospital needs to train its staff in empathy towards its customers if they are to survive the competition from other hospitals. The customers may regard individual service quality attributes higher than when asked for Overall Service Quality.

30. SALIENT FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONSThe study shows that the customers have more faith in the doctors at this hospitalthan they have in the hospital itself.The waiting times are perceived as high, which points towards inefficiency in handling the rosters. The hospital needs to augment services and streamline the number of patients seen per physician, so as to decrease waiting time and improve service quality.The patients are also happy with the doctors in terms of their communication and taking their opinions into account. There is need to sensitize doctors about patient expectations, which if heeded to, can improve the service quality without any additional input in terms of resources. 31. SALIENT FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONSThe customers perception towards administrative procedures, like completing papers, is not favourable and should be streamlined to improve efficiency and speed of processing.The customers do not agree with the current prices of the services provided by the hospital. The hospital either has to improve its service quality to justify for the prices they charge or it has to reduce the prices for its services. 32. CONCLUSIONThis is an initial study that is limited in scope. It can for the basis of further studies on the hospital to gauge improvements in service performance and, thus, help in maintaining competitive advantage.This survey can be considered as a pro-active marketing activity designed to improve functional service quality and as a result, increasing customer / patient satisfaction, which is the desired outcome. It is a cost-effective method for assessing service quality and provides insights on deficiencies and potential improvements. This survey should be used as a marketing strategy since it shows that the hospital is a responsive organization. 33. CONCLUSION (Contd.)Top management must place emphasis on change management. Managers in the hospital must use whatever benchmark information that is available to identify potential improvement areas and then use best practices in the industry to improve in these areas. As a long-term solution, it is recommended that the managers should implement an information system that can support efficient management decisions. Help in comparing data with other hospitals to gauge their own performances against those of others. It can reasonably be said that in the current competitive healthcare scenario, customer perception surveys can be an important market information and research tool in the hands of contemporary hospital administrators. 34. Thank You