The health of the health care industry: a report card from American consumers.

This article reports on the public perceptions of the quality of health care services offered by three categories of provider professionals (physicians, dentists, and pharmacists) and three categories of hospitals (public, private, and those with religious affiliations). The authors examine quality along two dimensions: the quality of "cure" vs. the quality of "caring." Results show that, although the health care industry does a fairly decent job in delivering quality service, there is uneven performance across different providers. Data also show the quality of caring to be lagging the quality of cure; importantly, however, the former is more influential in earning patient loyalty. The role of the two types of quality in patient retention are presented, along with implications for health care industry managers.