Comparative Study of Service Quality Gap in Hospital Industry

Research methodology describes the action of how to proceed, identify, select and analyze information about the topic. Marketing study has depicted all the activities that allow an organization to hold off the institution needed. The methodology section answers two main important questions:

1. How was the data analyzed?
2. How was the data generated or collected?

Research design

The present study is descriptive in character. The data is available in primary as well as secondary sources of information.

Data collection technique

1. Primary

A structured questionnaire was formed and circulated to people living in different cities. A total of 50 responses were recorded and analyzed. Respondents were asked to fill up the set of 15 questions as per the instructions mentioned on them. They were specifically requested to not go through the text at once but to go throw each individual statement one by one. The confidentiality of the responses was assured by respondents only. They were encouraged to express their opinion fairly and freely. Precautions were also taken on the unbiased results. While drafting the questions, they were made up on the basis of both open-ended and close-ended questions. In some of the close-ended questions, respondents were asked to rate their satisfaction level with specific reference to the questions.

2. Secondary

Secondary Data was used for the statistics and basic knowledge about the various divisions of the report. Under the ‘Comparative study of private and public sector healthcare services’ - Byju K.P.M (a research scholar) has shown various SERVIQUAL analyses in the hospitals of India. Under this information, statistical tools and sampling areas have been recorded.

India’s total healthcare expenditure under two different time periods:

Total healthcare expenditure in ‘OOOs of crores

The year 2010 the year 2019

304 590

India lags behind Low and Middle-class Income Countries when it comes to total healthcare expenditure. And out of pocket expenditure. As it is a long-term journey to develop or transform into a significant portion of the development and it is unrealistic that the country can achieve its health reforms within a decade.

The public sector hospital beds have been increasing at a cumulative annual growth rate of 3 to 5 percent and the CAGR of private sector hospital beds are at 7 to 10 percent.

By 2022 the total healthcare spending of India must move up from the current 4 percent of GDP to 6 percent of GDP. The spending of the govt. must move towards at least 3 percent.

Area of the study

Due to money and time constraints, this study is limited to Noida’s hospitals and the questionnaire is done on the basis of random sampling as the people were from different cities. This study involves interaction among people and employees working in hospitals. The knowledge has been gained from the employee's experience as well as perception towards their job.

A study was done in Noida in order to understand their healthcare public spending. Two private hospitals and two government hospitals were chosen on the basis of their profile and specialty in treatments.

Sampling Design

• Sector Hospital Total sample Patients Attendants
• Private Sector Yatharth Hospital 250 160 90
• Apollo Hospital 300 200 100
• Public Sector Govt. District Hospital 190 100 90
• Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar Multispecialty Hospital 200 150 50

A study was conducted on 4 major hospitals in Noida having comp ability in Noida city. The total sample size was 940.

• Private sector- 550
• Public sector- 390

Private sector 500 beds together with an occupancy rate of 70%. Whereas the public sector had 700 beds put together with a 110% occupancy rate. A simple random sampling procedure was done to draw samples.

Scope of the Study

This report displays a comparative analysis of Private sector Hospitals and Public Sector Hospitals. The services provided under a Private healthcare facility is different from Public healthcare facility, whether it is in terms for timings, prescribing medications, sanitation services, etc. This study also depicts the perceptions of people going to these facilities.

Data analysis and interpretation

The data is comprised to present a comparative study of level of patient satisfaction in public as well as private sector hospitals. This study has been completed on the basis of the results that would represent the true status of satisfaction level among patients. During the period of study the analysis is based on the basis of:

• On the basis of the Organizational Environment
• On the basis of the Attitude Of the Hospital Administration
• On the basis of the quality of services provided by the hospital.
• On the basis of the satisfaction level of patients from the point of view of the quality of facilities provided by the hospital

The data recorded is as follows:

The recorded data consists of at least 50 people in which majority of responses were given by people aged 20-21 years old which is 64%. There were few people who falls in the category of below 20 years and above 21 years.

Analysis

Starting with basic question with the above pie chart shows that 68.6% of people will prefer going to a private hospital for their checkup and 17.6% of people will prefer Ayurvedic Clinic Instead of Public Hospital which is only 7.8%. The remaining 6% of people will prefer going to Homeopathic Clinic.

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Analysis

According to the above question, this pie chart shows that people who have chosen their preferred medical facility have rated their level of satisfaction. Nearly 58.8% percent of people are only satisfied whereas 25.5% percent of people are very satisfied and 7.8 percent of people are unsatisfied.

Analysis

A primary healthcare provider is basically a healthcare practitioner who sees people that have common medical problems. This person is called as a physician assistant or a nurse practitioner. According to the above pie chart 66.7% are satisfied by the treatment given by their primary healthcare practitioner. 23.5% of people are very satisfied with their treatment and 9.8% of people have not expressed their opinion.

Analysis

In order to prevent the unbiased report as medical expenses are covered under Health Insurance Plan. As the majority of people who prefer Private hospitals are currently covered under a Health Insurance Plan which helps limit their Medical expenses to expensive private hospitals. 78.4% of people have health insurance plan and 21.6% of does not have health insurance plan.

Analysis

This figure represents that 66.7% of people were given a chance to see their primary doctor in their preferred medical facility and 33.3%of were not given a chance to see their primary doctor.

Analysis

This figure represents that during an appointment with the doctor 64.7% of people have to wait for 30 minutes as well as 19.6% of people have to wait for 30-60 minutes and 11.8% of people have to wait for more than one hour to meet their primary doctor.

Analysis

According to this pie chart in case of any different health problem, 47.1% of people visit any different medical facility such as people who chose private hospitals may choose different medical clinics available. 19.6% are not sure for any other medical facility and 33.3% of may not prefer any other facility in case of different health problems.

Analysis

According to the Pie chart shown above 80.4% percent of believing that the treatment is explained very well to their preferred facility and 15.7% of people were unsatisfied for the situation when the treatment is explained.

Analysis

According to the above data, 29.4% of people have visited 3 times their primary healthcare facility whereas 27.5% of people have visited 2 times 23.5% of people have visited 1 time and 11.8% of people haven’t visited at all.

Analysis

In order to find out the no. of visits in one year 41.2% of people visit only 1-2 times, 29.4% of people visit 3-5 times and 27.5% of people visit only 1 or at no time. At last only 3% of people visit more than 5 times in their primary healthcare facility.

Analysis

In the above pie chart, 43.1% of people have received conflicting information against any other hospital. 27.5% of people have rarely received that kind of perception against one another. 15.7% of people have claimed that their primary hospital is criticized by different medical care professionals.

Analysis

In the above data it is given that 68.6% of people have claimed that they have been informed about the side effect of every medicine and 31.4% of people have declined that response.

Analysis

According to the above question, it has been claimed by 51% of people that they have been provided all kinds of prescribed by the pharmacy located in the medical facility.47.1% of people have claimed that they’ve been provided by some medicines only.

Analysis

According to the above context, 51% of people agree that the visiting hours of the medical facility is best suited for them and 41.2% of people are satisfied with the timings and 7.8% of people are strongly agreed on the flexible timings of their hospital.

In order to have the insight of services provided by both public as well as private hospitals analyzing their positive and negative reply 50 random people were selected to justify their perception towards the quality of services by both hospitals.

• Particulars No. of Samples Public Hospitals Private Hospitals
• 50 respondents Positive reply Negative reply Positive Reply Negative reply
• Are you satisfied with the emergency Medicare services provided by the hospital? 23 27 34 16
• Are you l satisfied with the Dietary services provided by the hospital?
• 14 36 26 24
• Did the canteen Facilities available in the hospital? 34 16 38 12
• Did you find banking &
• communication services facilities in
• The hospital? 26 24 31 19
• Does hospital have proper occupied parking
• Place? 16 34 30 20
• Did you get 24 hours? Prompt nursing
• Services in the hospital? 21 29 25 25
• Are there any banking &
• communication services facilities in
• The hospital?
• 10 40 24 26

Interpretation

As we have seen that the difference between services provided by private hospitals and public hospitals don’t have too common results.

• The majority of positive replies have been given under private hospitals as compared to public hospitals.
• There are number services provided by private hospitals instead of Public hospitals.
• The organizational structure of public and private healthcare is totally different. The government hospitals are run by state to provide curative as well as preventive medical aids primarily to the deprived section of society. These are government-funded hospitals.
• The private hospitals will only treat those patients who are capable of paying their services. Charitable private hospitals are functioning on no profit a loss basis.
• The organizational structure of public sector and private sector differ from all levels due to the basic structure of their establishment, operation and objectives.
• The recruitment of employees of the private sector is made by officials through the well-defined procedure. And in public sector hospitals, simple procedure is followed.
• The attitude of employees in public sector is not courteous as compared to private sector hospitals.
• In private sector hospitals, the delegation and management of authorities is done in a well-defined manner as compared to public sector hospitals.
• Most of the patients have also complained about foul smell, sanitation, and so many other types of pollution while patients from private hospitals found their hospitals free from different types of pollution.
• Most of the patients complained about public hospitals lacked proper coordination. On the contrary, the patients of private hospitals found their hospitals remained witnesses of cordial environments which have different departments from their hospital.
• Dietary services of public hospitals could not attract their patients while a maximum number of patients of private hospitals were found satisfied with the quality and hygiene of food provided to them.
• There is awful maintenance of and unavailability of ICU services of Public hospitals and in contrast to private hospitals, these kinds of services are praised by their customers.
• In government hospitals, it is found that all power is centralized in CMOS and these people are generally scared of delegating their powers to their subordinates. In private sector hospitals, the delegation of authorities and responsibilities among different levels of employees was observed methodically.

Conclusion

According to this above study it is clear that there is a huge gap of services provided by private sector hospitals and public sector hospitals. The review of the literature has completely shown that service quality studies were few as compared to studies done by other countries.

Most importantly it is given that Services of any sector is only possible by SERVQUAL analysis and there are many models which can prove that.

Through my research, it is proved that private hospitals have taken a greater place in the market by providing larger revenue in the country. There are many factors that are available in order to provide better healthcare unit and factors such as timeliness, efficiency, genuine treatment of illness, respect, safety, and reasonable fess structure are mandatory.

The satisfaction level of patients of a hospital is also dependent on the attitude which is preserved by the healthcare service provider and the hospital’s environment. There is lack of adequate services provided by public sector hospitals through which many people turn to prefer private healthcare providers, but this option is not available for the poor society.

Suggestions

• There must be a responsibility of every hospital management that all the services of any hospital or clinic must be world-class.
• The medical facility must be supposed to blend the different services in an optimal way so that there is no point of bad image faced by the hospital and it helps them for conflict of information against any other hospital.
• There must be strict regulatory provisions that must be required to avoid different types of collaboration that are being misused.
• There is an immediate need of high-quality machines in public sector hospitals as in any other industry and employees should have training on how to operate these machines. This will help a fully trained hospital to be motivated in their work which can help achieve good results.
• The government of India must take several initiatives such as RSBY which can help improve medical insurance coverage and can help provide medicines at a cheaper cost.
• To get International recognition and to improve the quality standards of healthcare units in India, the accreditation certification process must be encouraged in both private as well as public hospitals.
• A balanced and practical demand of finance must be followed up by the management of both public as well private hospitals after critically analyzing the best use of resources available. It is only applicable when public hospitals are managed by management professionals and not by doctors.