Towards service quality measurement mechanism of teaching hospitals

Quality is the principal concern of all organizations and their survival and prosperity directly depends, to a large part, on the quality of their services. Hospitals endeavor to deliver service with the acceptable quality to their clientele to maximize profit. Scholars are yet to develop consensus on definition and measurement of quality of service. Literature exhibits models to evaluate the quality of service; however, it does not present any mechanism to evaluate quality of services delivered by teaching hospitals. This study presents an exclusive model to evaluate service quality in teaching hospitals. In addition to healthcare services (cure and care), the model encompasses teaching aspect of hospital services. Thus this paper is a careful study of a large (2500 bedded) public sector teaching hospital. 400 patients, 250 employees, 200 general public and 250 students were administered with questionnaires followed by interviews. Hospital records were studied. In addition to this data was collected through observation. All that contribute to quality of services were classified into one of the three dimensions of the model. Since this model has been developed through inductive approach, it can safely be applied to evaluate quality of services of teaching hospitals with reliability and accuracy.