Measuring hospital out-patient service quality in Thailand

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to determine the dimensions used in judging the hospital services quality; to develop a tool for measuring perceived service quality for hospitals; to test the validity and reliability of the new scale; and finally to use the results of the data collected to suggest improving service quality. Design/methodology/approach - A cross-sectional field study was conducted among 400 hospital out-patients in Thailand. The researchers administered the SERVQUAL instrument in order to assess the applicability of these service quality attributes to the out-patient hospital setting in Thailand. The data collected were used to assess the psychometric properties of the SERVQUAL instrument and to analyze whether and to what extent the SERVQUAL dimensions adequately predicted overall service quality among Thai hospital out-patient respondents. The psychometric properties of the instrument were quite acceptable and the resulting five-factor structure was consistent to and confirms earlier measurement theory. The measurement model as estimated by the use of structural equation modeling further showed that the hypothesized model fit the empirical data quite well. Findings - The results indicate that SERVQUAL's five latent dimensions had a significant influence on overall service quality. Responsiveness had most influence; followed by empathy, tangibles, assurance; and finally reliability. Research limitations/implications - The results of this study demonstrate that service quality can be assessed in diverse service settings such as hospital out-patient departments. Further, SERVQUAL is robust enough to capture the critical elements used to assess overall service quality. The study was limited in its external validity and prediction was constrained due to the nature of the data collected, i.e. cross-sectional design. This study also chose to focus on one outcome variable, i.e. overall service quality. Other critical variables might be reasonably assessed, e. g. customer satisfaction, loyalty intentions, firm performance. Practical implications - The present study has several managerial implications for service quality enhancement in the hospitals in Thailand. First, given that responsiveness, was the strongest predictor of service quality, hospital out-patient employees can exercise strong influence over perceived quality by giving sincere and detailed information about service conditions, by being willing to help and by offering fast and efficient service to out-patients. Originality/value - The World Bank reports that health care and hospital care in particular is a growing portion of the economic pie, now nearly 18 percent of GDP in the USA. Global health care administrators are under pressure to not just control costs but to offer a quality health care experience This study offers insight into how the health care out-patient consumer views service quality and the relative importance of the various service quality dimensions in predicting overall service quality.