Towards An Improved Health Service Quality Delivery And Patient Loyalty

The hospital industry in Ghana has been chronicled over the years to positively correlate to performance and service satisfaction,particularly in private healthcare delivery due to the little competition in most of the nation’s public hospitals.Nevertheless,hospitals are beginning to appreciate the need to develop a relationship-building effort through loyalty with patients’ increasing bargaining power.Understanding patient experiences could certainly help practitioners better share patients’ views of service delivery and improve patient satisfaction,as healthcare delivery is becoming increasingly competitive in the modern marketplace.Owing to the over-reliance of highly populated patients on the services of public hospitals,which have few healthcare specialists,the Ghanaian government subsidizes the healthcare costs of patients in public hospitals and a few licensed private hospitals to reduce the financial strain on the general population and ensure access to primary health care for everyone,with little to no economic shocks.However,as a healthcare issue in the Ghanaian healthcare system,a failing “patient-provider” relationship has received significant attention.Poor patient services have been identified as a significant predictor of increasing brutality and violence against private healthcare providers in the nation.Although the quality of services has received a lot of attention in driving satisfaction and loyalty among private healthcare patrons all over the world,the quality of services rendered in Ghana by the private health industry appears to be one that still needs to be deeply examined,as the industry seems to have lost focus on patient retention(loyalty),which is crucial to its competitive survival.Despite numerous undocumented patient outcry media reports,most of these investigations into the provision of services by health care providers have been conducted in public health centers to a greater extent.There is little work in literature to fully address this link in the context of private hospitals in Ghana,even though the provision of health care,in general,is still under study.With an increasing incentive for patients to move from a public hospital to a private hospital to receive healthcare,even amid heavy government subsidies on medical costs.For this gap and to help gain comprehensive insights into the study,six specific objectives were developed by this study aimed to evaluate a conceptual model of service quality dimensions with mediating and moderating effects on patient loyalty in Ghana’s private healthcare industry.The study’s first objective was to carry out a rigorous statistical analysis of the direct relationship between the quality of service dimension adopted(responsiveness,assurance,tangibles,empathy,and reliability)on patients’ satisfaction.The second objective was to perform an exhaustive statistical analysis into the direct relationship between patients’ satisfaction in service delivery and loyalty creation among private healthcare services patrons.The third specific objective sought to statistically analyze the relationship between the service quality dimensions(responsiveness,assurance,tangibles,empathy,and reliability),indirectly driving loyalty amongst the private healthcare services’ patrons.In contrast,the fourth objective investigated the mediating role of patient satisfaction in the relationship between the service quality dimensions(responsiveness,assurance,tangibles,empathy,and reliability)and patient loyalty.The fifth objective examined the moderated impact of the service quality dimensions(responsiveness,assurance,tangibles,empathy,and reliability)through service encounter needs(psychosocial needs)on patient satisfaction.In contrast,the sixth specific objective investigated the moderating role of word-of-mouth(WOM)recommendations in the relationship between patient satisfaction and loyalty of patients amongst the patrons of the private healthcare services.These objectives were achieved through a descriptive survey study design technique utilizing by novelty the five-dimensions of the “SERVQUAL” model to test the effect of the quality of services in private healthcare delivery.Patient satisfaction served as a mediator in the connection between the exogenous construct(quality of service)and the endogenous construct(patient loyalty)with the fulfillment of service encounter needs(psychosocial needs)and positive word-of-mouth(WOM)recommendations playing a moderating role in this study respectively.The study focused on out-patients in seven selected private hospitals receiving medical services.A total of a thousand one hundred and twenty-four valid responses(1,124)were analyzed using a convenience sampling method and one set of survey questionnaires for the target population.To assess how service quality influences patient loyalty intentions toward private hospital facilities,an innovative structural path modeling technique using(Smart PLS v.3.2.8)software was adopted to test the data’s constructs and relationships,which was different from previous works that employed qualitative methods.This study’s first theoretical contribution is the conceptual and theoretical model concerning the private healthcare standard of service delivery through the adopted and updated Servqual dimensions,which are commonly used in service marketing literature but uncommon in the healthcare sector as influencing factors in driving patient loyalty.Secondly,the positive and significant direct effects of the quality of services on patients’ satisfaction in service delivery in the hospital environment are vital in driving private healthcare performance.Thirdly,the mediation and moderation mechanism,the fulfillment of patients’ psychosocial needs as like their functional needs in service delivery encounters,drives positive word-of-mouth to loyalty creation through patient satisfaction.These are primarily related to factors influencing private healthcare delivery performance.The most important is that the patient’s quality of service delivery and satisfaction can affect private healthcare performance to loyalty creation.The fulfillment of the patient’s psychosocial needs is more likely to influence the service receivers’ satisfaction orientation and drive loyalty creation via positive word-of-mouth recommendations.The findings show that private healthcare service suppliers are trying to provide their clients with well-improved healthcare services.There is an important relationship between the quality of service and patients’ satisfaction,which has a significant connection with the loyalty of patients.Patient satisfaction was postulated as a complementary partial mediator of the relationship between service quality and patient loyalty.Service encounter needs(SENT)and word-of-mouth(WOM)recommendations played a moderating role in the relationship between quality of service and patient satisfaction,patient satisfaction,and patient loyalty,respectively,adding to the pool of knowledge the existing literature.The results confirmed that better quality of healthcare service tends to generate satisfaction,leading to patient loyalty to the private hospital.It provided a clear picture of people’s behavior,their desire for satisfaction,and their loyalty to health services’ quality.The confirmation of patient satisfaction as a complementary yet partial mediator between the quality of service and patient loyalty highlights the influential role of satisfying the patients in achieving loyalty to the hospital.The moderating roles of a fulfilling service encounter needs and word-of-mouth recommendations in strengthening such relationships.Health managers are constantly seeking to develop a loyal patient base given the rising competition levels in healthcare delivery.These well-served and satisfied patients will aid as ambassadors for the hospital’s growth through recommendations.Based on the findings,the study seeks to aid private healthcare professionals,managers,and policymakers in developing effective strategies to ensure that high-quality medical services are delivered to patients through this policy guidance.First,better quality service increases patient satisfaction;hence,private hospital owner-managers and senior executives should strengthen private healthcare performance issues following policy considerations.Second,meeting a service encounter’s psychosocial needs,such as functional needs,not only increases the satisfaction of all parties to the service but also creates the necessary conditions and a good working environment for workers and employees to develop their abilities and creativity to obtain new products,processes,and management systems,as well as encourages plans to revisit the hospital and its services.Third,private hospital operators must also learn how to adapt and cope with the changes and the technological advancements in the healthcare environment to remain operational in business.Finally,policymakers in the private healthcare sector should review their numerous regulations and controls regulating their service operations in order to identify and eliminate any aspects of their operations that deter service satisfaction and prevent the development of loyalty among its diverse patrons,which can jeopardize the sustainability and growth of hospitals in the private healthcare industry.In inference,the innovative conceptual model adopted with mediating and moderating effects on patient loyalty was efficient in this study.While service quality can directly affect patient loyalty,by novelty,patient satisfaction through fulfilling service encounter needs serves as a complementary mediator.Through positive word-of-mouth recommendations,the quality of service on patient loyalty creation in the private healthcare industry.