Chakravarty Abhijit
Associate Professor, Department of Hospital Administration, AFMC, Pune - 40.
Med J Armed Forces India. 2011 Jul;67(3):221-4. doi: 10.1016/S0377-1237(11)60045-2. Epub 2011 Aug 7.
It has become essential for hospital managers to understand and measure consumer perspectives and service quality gaps, so that any perceived gap in delivery of service is identified and suitably addressed. A study was conducted at a peripheral service hospital to ascertain any service gap between consumer expectations and perceptions in respect of the hospital outpatient department (OPD) services.
A cross-sectional study was conducted using SERVQUAL as the survey instrument, the instrument being validated for use in the hospital environment. Consumer ratings across 22 items of the survey instrument were collected in paired expectation and perception scores and then service quality gaps were identified and statistically analysed.
Service quality gaps were identified to exist across all the five dimensions of the survey instrument, with statistically significant gaps across the dimensions of 'tangibles' and 'responsiveness.' The quality gaps were further validated by a total unweighted SERVQUAL score of (-) 1.63.
The study concludes that significant service quality gaps existed in the delivery of the hospital OPD services, which need to be addressed by focused improvement efforts by the hospital management.
医院管理者了解并衡量消费者的观点以及服务质量差距变得至关重要，以便识别并妥善处理任何察觉到的服务提供差距。在一家周边服务医院开展了一项研究，以确定消费者对医院门诊部（OPD）服务的期望与认知之间是否存在服务差距。
采用SERVQUAL作为调查工具进行了一项横断面研究，该工具经验证可用于医院环境。收集了调查工具22个项目的消费者配对期望得分和认知得分，然后识别服务质量差距并进行统计分析。
在调查工具的所有五个维度中均发现存在服务质量差距，在“有形性”和“响应性”维度存在具有统计学意义的差距。通过总计未加权的SERVQUAL得分为（-）1.63进一步验证了质量差距。
该研究得出结论，医院门诊部服务的提供存在显著的服务质量差距，医院管理层需要通过有针对性的改进措施加以解决。
