Study Of Hospital Reputation Assessment And Management Strategies

The direction of the medical system reform is to introduce the market mechanism. Therefore hospitals will face vital problems of survival and development. How to obtain sustainable competitive advantages in the process of reform is an important issue in hospital management. Since the service provided by hospitals is directly concerned with life and health, patients are extremely sensitive to its reputation when they choose which hospital to go. Thus hospitals are bound to manage their reputation.An index system to measure hospital reputation is the basis of hospital reputation management. Also it is the theoretical basis of discovering and overcoming weaknesses in practice and evaluating reputation management performance. Taking third-class hospitals in Hangzhou as the research object, the thesis builds such a system through empirical study, based on corporate reputation and hospital reputation theories. Then the thesis studies contingency and stresses of hospitals. To be specific, this thesis contains four parts as follows:Firstly, the thesis reviews relative theories on corporate reputation and hospital reputation. Based on literature and customer interview, the thesis poses an evaluation scale. After that it illustrates the design of the empirical research and the process of data obtaining.Secondly, the thesis implements a customer investigation and uses factor analysis to analyze the data. Consequently, we draw five factors to evaluate the hospital reputation. They are Medical Strength, Logistic Support, Staff Quality, Attentiveness and Charge Transparency. At the same time, we figures out quantitative relationships between the five factors and its individual bottom indices. Then we carry out an expert investigation and use AHP method to quantify the weight of the five factors. Finally, we work out the hospital reputation scale, that is, hospital reputation index.Thirdly, based upon the analysis of variance (ANOVA), the thesis studies the contingency of hospital reputation management. After that, the thesis compares customers' importance and performance perception to study the stresses of hospital reputation management.Lastly, the thesis summarizes outcomes of previous studies and points out their practical significance as well. Then the thesis winds up with the research limitations and prospects.