Quality evaluation in healthcare services based on the customer-provider relationship.

Abstract

This paper identifies important changes in the Portuguese healthcare industry such as the ownership of healthcare providers, meaning that profit-oriented organisations are currently entering into an industry, which was traditionally dominated by public services. At the same time customers are changing their attitudes towards healthcare becoming much more concerned and demanding with health services. These changes are driving Portuguese healthcare private and public organisations to develop more marketing-oriented services. This paper recognises the importance of quality evaluation of healthcare services as a means to increase levels of customer satisfaction and organisational efficiency. Although evaluating healthcare services raises different questions from other services because of their complexity, ambiguity and heterogeneity, the paper develops a framework to healthcare evaluation based on the relationship between customers (patients, their relatives and citizens) and providers (managers, doctors, other technical staff, non-technical staff) having in mind four quality items (customer service orientation, financial performance, logistical functionality, and level of staff competence).Healthcare, customer service, quality evaluation, performance