Outpatient Service Implementation Model at Bandung City Mother Baby Hospital

This research aimed to analyze the outpatient services at Bandung City Mother Baby Hospital. It tried to design the outpatient services flow model so that the services provided by this hospital could run effectively and efficiently. It could also meet the patients’ expectations concerning the quality of services. The theory or model developed by Zeithaml et al (1988) was cited to analyze the outpatient services given at that hospital. The service quality was measured from 5 (five) dimensions, namely: tangible, empathy, reliability, responsiveness, and assurance. This research employed a descriptive and qualitative method. The data were collected through interviews, observation, and document reviews. The data analysis comprised data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing. The triangulation of method was used to test the data validity. The analysis results showed that the outpatient services at Bandung City Mother Baby Hospital encountered some shortcomings that need to be improved. In terms of the dimension of intangible, the facilities, infrastructure, disciplinary officers, and public access were still lacking. In the dimension of empathy, there was inadequate awareness on the part of service officers to prioritize the patients more than their personal interests, and the patients were often left waiting to receive services. In the dimension of reliability, the service officers obtained a bad assessment result from the clients due to unclear service time and time-consuming queues at the sub-service units. In terms of the dimension of responsiveness, the service officers lacked alertness in handling outpatient services because the patients had to proceed from one sub-service unit to another. In the dimension of assurance, the service officers could not meet the service time accomplishment. Based on the research findings, Bandung City Mother Baby Hospital needs to improve its outpatient quality services, especially the service time assurance. The outpatient service model recommended in this research refers to the service quality indicators from Zeithaml, et al consisting of tangible, empathy, reliability, responsiveness, and assurance. This model expects the outpatient services will be effective and efficient so that the patients can get punctual and prompt services, clearly comprehend the outpatient service flow, and obtain higher satisfaction. Keywords—outpatient services model, Bandung City Mother Baby Hospital