| Summary: | Service quality is one of the leading performance dimensions for organisational efficieny.
In the healthcare industry, service quality is a major determinant for patient satisfaction.
Maintaining patient satisfaction is critical to achieving excellent clinical outcomes in any
patients. The COVID-19 pandemic, has disrupted the healthcare system and impacted the
healthcare service quality delivery. This study investigated the healthcare service quality
during the pandemic, by performing secondary analysis on readily available SERVQUAL
datasets obtained during the pandemic through routine patient satisfaction surveys, in a
tertiary healthcare centre that manages severe COVID-19 cases. This study discovered
that significant service quality gaps existed in all quality dimensions at the inpatient
setting during the pandemic, with Tangible service quality being the most negatively
impacted. During the pandemic, hospitalised patients also significantly expected for
Assurance and Outcome service quality dimensions. When IPA approach was applied to
the datasets, service quality items from the Tangible, Reliability, and Responsiveness
dimensions were identified as the priority areas for quality improvement during a
pandemic. This research could help healthcare managers effectively direct their resources
when launching quality improvement intervention. Finally, with these findings,
sustainable healthcare system that can withstand difficult and challenging crises can be
properly planned to maintain satisfactory service quality in the Malaysian hospitals.
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