Towards an Improved Health Service Quality Delivery and Patient Loyalty: Does Satisfaction Really Matter?

Abstract

The healthcare industry in developing nations has chronicled high development rate in our current dispensation. This study sought to identify the most critical factors in hospitals related service delivery quality that will drive loyalty and hence ensure the survival and success of the hospital in the future; it ideally tested if the satisfaction of a patient had any role to play in such relationship. This study was conducted using data from (562) patients who received services from (4) four major but different private hospitals in Ghana. The five Service Quality dimensions; Tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy, patient satisfaction and loyalty to the hospital were the variables well-thought-out for this study. A path analysis was done utilizing SmartPLS V3.2.8; a second-generation multivariate data analysis method (PLS-SEM) in order to compute path coefficients, direct and indirect effects of the variables on patient's satisfaction and also loyalty to the hospital. The study prompted that empathy, responsiveness and tangibility (not assurance and reliability) impact patients’ satisfaction and patient's satisfaction is directly related to patients’ loyalty to the hospital/clinic.

Keywords

• private health/clinic
• service quality
• patient loyalty
• satisfaction
• pls-sem