AN INCLUSIVE MODEL FOR ASSESSING THE QUALITY OF SERVICE IN PUBLIC SECTOR TERTIARY HOSPITALS

Quality has taken central stage in contemporary organizations and is one of the key areas of competition. Healthcare organizations, in particular, strive to provide better quality services to their patients in order to gain competitive advantage. Researchers and academicians have yet to agree on how to define and measure quality of service. Attempts have been made to develop standards and measurements to determine the degree of quality of services. However, the literature does not contain a model or standards to measure the quality of health care services. The paper in question presents an inclusive model to measure the quality of service of healthcare organizations. In addition to healthcare services (cure and care) the model encompasses teaching aspect of hospitals as well. This model was developed on the basis of an in-depth and careful study of a large (2400 bedded) public sector teaching hospital spread over a period of two years. Data was collected from 400 patients, 250 employees, 200 general public, and 250 students through questionnaire followed by in-depth interviews. In addition to all this, various processes and interactions among individuals in the hospital were closely observed. Hospital records were studied. Anything that possibly could contribute to the quality of service in hospital was placed under one of the three dimensions of the model. Since the model has been inductively developed through data triangulation, it can safely be used to measure the quality of health care services with a good deal of accuracy