Perceived Service Quality of Public and Private Hospitals in Samsun


ÖZPOLAT H. A., TUNÇ T.

Turkish Studies - Economics, Finance, Politics , vol.16, no.4, pp.1317-1332, 2021 (Peer-Reviewed Journal) identifier

Abstract

Service quality is one of the most important issues in the health sector and it is a concept that has been emphasized recently in terms of providing competitive advantage to businesses. In this context, various studies and research is being done both academically and within the sector. Quality was defined as the whole of the characteristics based on meeting the present or potential requirements of a product or service. Service quality is the ability of the person providing the service to provide the product or service to the customers in a complete, right time and way while performing their performance. Since, meeting the expectations of the customers and showing the best performance of the service provider are the main determinants of service quality, it is almost impossible to standardize the service quality. However, taking into consideration features such as physical characteristics, satisfaction and the performance of employees, it is possible to evaluate service quality. The service quality level of these hospitals was determined by the SERVQUAL scale applied to volunteer patients receiving service from 3 private and 3 public hospitals in Samsun. The sample of the study consists of 330 volunteers who were randomly selected, residing in Samsun and had received service from the hospitals in Samsun at least twice before. As a result of the study, it was determined that the level of meeting patient / customer expectations of the hospitals operating in Samsun is at "medium level" for public hospitals and "at a good level" for private hospitals. While the sub-dimension of responsiveness provides the most important effect on service quality in private hospitals, it provides the sub-dimension of trust in public hospitals.