As health care services get more competitive, the health care practitioners and academic researchers are increasingly interested in exploring how patients perceive their care quality and value, form their satisfaction levels and generate their behavioral intentions. Outpatient services provide an alternate setting for patients to have initial contact with health care providers. Besides, two-thirds of Taiwan¡¦s total NHI expenditure is spent on outpatient services. Thus, it is of great significance to note outpatients¡¦ perceptions of health care services. Drawing from marketing literature, perceived value can be viewed as the consequence of service quality and as the antecedent role of satisfaction and behavioral intentions. This study conducted empirical test an integrative model of customers¡¦ perceptions of outpatient services based on the established relationships among four key constructs (service quality, perceived value, satisfaction and behavioral intentions). First, this study conducted focus group discussion to identify the factors of quality of outpatient services as follows: (1) the personal interaction between medical staff and patients, (2) the assurance from medical staff, (3) the speed of timely access to a service, and (4) tangible aspect. Later, structural equation model was used to examine the research model which addresses the hypothesized relationships among the four constructs of interest in the health care industry. The main findings are summarized as follows: (1) perceive value had a greater direct influence on behavioral intentions than did service quality and patient satisfaction; (2) service quality had both an indirect effect (through perceived value and satisfaction) and a direct influence on behavioral intentions; and (3) both service quality and value are antecedents of patient satisfaction; the most important determinant of patient satisfaction is quality of health care. Finally, this dissertation ends with a discussion of the results and implications for the managerial practices, followed by suggestions for future research.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0130108-020000 |
| Date | 30 January 2008 |
| Creators | Wu, Hsiu-Lan |
| Contributors | Chang-Yung Liu, Li-Chuan Lin, Hsien-Tang Tsai, Han-Jung Chen, Huei-Mei Liang, Iuan-Yuan Lu |
| Publisher | NSYSU |
| Source Sets | NSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0130108-020000 |
| Rights | not_available, Copyright information available at source archive |
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