Service quality in private hospitals of Jammu and Kashmir - an empirical assessment from District Srinagar

The growing middle class, increased health consciousness and inadequate public health facilities have led to an enormous growth of the private healthcare sector in India. The aim of the present study is to evaluate the service quality of private hospitals in Srinagar District of India from the perspective of outpatients. The study used SERVQUAL model to determine the overall service quality and gaps between perceptions and expectations of outpatients regarding service quality attributes in sample private hospitals. The results revealed that there existed a statistically significant difference between total mean perceptions and total mean expectations of patients across all the dimensions and variables of healthcare service quality (p < 0.05) except for three variables (hospital being visually appealing; floor being clean; and, hospital having regular water supply). The overall service quality of −1.22 implies that the private hospitals in Srinagar District are far from meeting the expectations of patients.