A Study on Medical Consumers ’ Hospital Selection Factors Using Kano Model and Timko Model

The purpose of this study is to identify medical consumers’ hospital selection factors in response to the rapidly changing environment of medical industry. For that purpose this study classified consumers’ hospital selection factors into three categories such that human factors including expertise, reliability, empathy; system factor including, convenience, differentiation, efficiency; and facility factor including tangibility, accessibility, and location, based on the previous studies and the results of a preliminary survey of the patients of a small private hospital. The nine factors were further divided into 23 more specific attributes. Then, an online survey was conducted to measure the perceptions of the 23 attributes by the medical consumers over the age of 20. The analysis of the survey data using Kano model and Timko model indicated that 14 of the 23 attributes were classified as attractive factors, eight attributes were or classified as, one-dimensional factors, and one attribute, doctors’ educational background, was classified as indifference factor. Of the 14 attractive factors, “unique and differentiated services related to medical treatment” and “distance from home to hospital” had the highest customer satisfaction coefficients. Of the eight one-dimensional factors, “kind treatment,” “providing adequate explanations,” “accuracy of diagnosis, ” and “cleanness of facilities” had the highest customer satisfaction coefficients as well as the highest dissatisfaction coefficients. The findings indicate that these six attributes are the most basic and most impactful attributes that hospitals must manage strategically to improve their service quality and attract more medical consumers to their hospitals