Assessing Patients’ Perception of Health Care Service Quality Offered by COHSASA-Accredited Hospitals in Nigeria

Service quality in health care institutions is an emerging phenomenon, and many hospitals are concerned about providing quality service to their patients based on information obtained by the patient’s perceptions of service quality. First, we aimed to determine patients’ perception of service quality offered at Council for Health Service Accreditation of Southern Africa (COHSASA)–accredited private hospitals in Nigeria. And that included reexamining the dimensionality of SERVQUAL (the test tool) based on our sample data. Second, we aimed to find out whether there are any existing gaps between patients’ expectation and perception of the service quality. Third, this research is an attempt to test the perceived quality effects on patients’ satisfaction and repurchase intentions toward health services. Quantitative research was conducted via self-administered questionnaires to patients who attended a randomly selected COHSASA-accredited private hospital in Nigeria and analyze their data using a variety of quantitative procedures including structural equation modeling, factor analyses, and paired-samples t tests. A systematic sampling method was used, and a total of 228 questionnaires were used for the final analyses. SERVQUAL was found to be a three-factor variate comprising the following: tangibility, reliability, and sensitivity. Our results concluded that perceived quality was significantly lower than expected quality despite being accompanied with positive levels of satisfaction and repurchase intentions. Finally, patient’s satisfaction was found to fully transmit the indirect effects of two of the three factors, quality sensitivity and reliability, onto repurchase intentions, whereas tangibility does not exert indirect significant influences over repurchase intentions via patient satisfaction

Total Quality Management Boosters and Blockers in a Humanitarian Setting: An Exploratory Investigation

Utilizing qualitative techniques, this research is aimed at investigating total quality management (TQM) implementation practices within a humanitarian setting. The extensive survey instrument of professionals working for the United Nations (UN) organizations operating in the Middle East is used to reveal TQM use within international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) that provide humanitarian relief. With the goal of helping organizations to address anticipated difficulties in implementing TQM practices that improve performance of humanitarian interventions, this study identifies and examines the boosters and blockers of successful implementation of the TQM practices. The most prominent themes that were identified relate to availability of funding, management commitment to quality, partnerships and communication channels, and knowledge sharing