Participants’ Perspectives on Healthcare Service Quality in Multispecialty Hospitals: A Qualitative Approach

Abstract

Professional services like healthcare operate with high degree of information asymmetry, where usually the seeker of service lacks knowledge and skills, and as a result, they cannot evaluate the benefits. Alternative indicators in the service delivery are sought by the seekers to bring evenness in their evaluation, which might not be reflective of providers’ perspectives of care. This study attempts to explore perspectives of both the participants in healthcare service delivery in multispecialty hospital settings. Semi-structured interviews were conducted using snowball sampling with doctors, paramedical staff and managers in multispecialty hospitals and patients and their attendants who have visited the same set of hospitals during past one year. The narratives of the respondents based on a priori interview themes were converted into textual data. Template analysis technique was used to thematically analyse and present the results. Differing accounts of two participants emerged out of the analysis and a gap between providers’ and seekers’ perspectives of each other’s expectations and perceptions of performance was observed. This study is a novel attempt to simultaneously account for both the participants’ perspectives to present a holistic picture rather than a one-sided view of healthcare service quality.