Results of mapping patients expectation using SERVQUAL

Understanding expectations of the patients towards the quality of services that hospitals providing is very important in quality in healthcare. With every health care organization claiming its services to be the best, benchmarking and comparing them to ascertain the real best is very difficult but much required in this competitive world. Patients have a varied need depending upon the resources and criticality of disease. The aim of the study was to identify the factors linked with patient's expectations contributing to the quality of the service delivered by the hospital.

Multi-speciality hospitals were visited to survey indoor and outdoor patients of different age groups. Omega coefficient and Cronbach α test were used to test the questionnaire's validity and reliability. The factor analysis technique was used to identify factors determining patient expectations. The SERVQUAL framework was used to categorize evaluation criteria.

The resultant factors show variations in prioritizing service demands by the patients. Such a system would enable the patients to select a hospital capable of delivering best quality services.

This study identifies the factors that contribute in delivering high quality service by the hospital. It gives a futuristic view to design a framework for evaluating the quality of the service delivered by a hospital.