Service Quality In Healthcare Facilities: An Examination In Dehradun

Abstract

Service quality is a paramount concern for both healthcare providers and patients, prompting a shift toward more personalized and comprehensive care. In the healthcare sector, delivering quality care is essential, necessitating an exploration of the drivers behind service quality. This paper reviews the literature on service quality dimensions in healthcare and conducts a study in the Dehradun district of Uttarakhand, India, to investigate patient perceptions and expectations of service quality in hospitals. The study employs the SERVQUAL model to assess service quality dimensions, including Tangibility, Reliability, Responsiveness, Assurance, and Empathy (RATER). The findings reveal that patients assign similar levels of importance to each dimension, with Assurance ranking the highest. However, significant gaps exist between patient expectations and perceptions across all dimensions except Assurance, indicating potential dissatisfaction. Assurance exhibits the most substantial expectation-perception gap. To address these gaps and enhance overall patient satisfaction, hospitals should focus on strategic and operational planning aimed at improving Assurance-related aspects, such as trustworthiness and communication. The study identifies four distinct service quality dimensions: Empathy, Tangibility, Responsiveness, and Reliability, underscoring the need for equitable attention to each dimension to enhance healthcare service quality. The study's limitations include a small sample size from a single region and reliance on self-reported survey data, which may introduce response bias. Further research with larger and more diverse samples is recommended to validate and expand upon these findings. Future research should also consider different hospital settings and regional variations to gain a more comprehensive understanding of patient perspectives on healthcare service quality.