The Applicability of SERVQUAL in Different Health Care Environments

This paper reports on a study that investigates the applicability of a modified SERVQUAL instrument as a means of measuring service quality in two types of health service environments; medical care, and health care (incorporating medical, social, cognitive and emotional elements). The research confirms a four factor structure that is stable for both environments, and similar to the service quality dimensions recognised in the literature. It also demonstrates the reliability and validity of SERVQUAL in this context but illustrates differences that highlight the complexity of health services. The dimensions of quality demonstrate quite different levels of significance to overall service quality for the two environments, and the relative importance of the dimensions is also shown to be inconsistent. These results confirm the suggestion that importance values should be part of the measurement tool. Finally, the extra diagnostic advantage achieved by the use of gap scores to measure service quality, when compared to perception only scores is demonstrated.