Evaluation of outpatient satisfaction and service quality of Pakistani healthcare projects: Application of a novel synthetic Grey Incidence Analysis model
Grey Systems: Theory and Application
ISSN: 2043-9377
Article publication date: 7 August 2018
Issue publication date: 24 September 2018
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyse the relationship between outpatient satisfaction and the five constructs of healthcare projects’ service quality in Pakistan using Deng’s grey incidence analysis (GIA) model, absolute degree GIA model (ADGIA), a novel second synthetic degree GIA (SSDGIA) model and two approaches of decision-making under uncertainty.
Design/methodology/approach
The study proposes a new synthetic GIA model and demonstrates its feasibility on data (N=221) collected from both public and private sector healthcare projects of Punjab, the most populous province of Pakistan, using a self-administered questionnaire developed using the original SERVQUAL approach.
Findings
The results of decision analysis approach indicated that outpatients’ satisfaction from the private sector healthcare projects is higher as compared to the public healthcare projects’. The results from the proposed model revealed that tangibility and reliability play an important role in shaping the patient satisfaction in the public and private sectors, respectively.
Originality/value
The study is pioneer in evaluating a healthcare system’s service quality using grey system theory. The study proposes the SSDGIA model as a novel method to evaluate parameters comprehensively based on their mutual association (given by absolute degree of grey incidence) and inter-dependencies (given by Deng’s degree of grey incidence), and tests the new model in the given scenario. The study is novel in terms of its analysis of data and modelling. The study also proposes a comprehensive structure of the healthcare delivery system of Pakistan.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Funding for Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation in Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (No. BCXJ18-10). The paper is one of the derivatives of the PhD dissertation of the corresponding author. The authors want to thank the GreySys Foundation’s GreySys Analytics and the Academy of Young Researchers and Scholars (AYRS) for their assistance in approaching hospitals, seeking permission for surveying within their premises and data collection. An older version of the paper was presented at the Joint Conference of 2018 International Congress of Grey Systems and Uncertainty Analysis (GSUA) and 32nd Workshop of Grey System Society of China (GSSC) held in Nanjing, China, from 20 to 23 April 2018.
Citation
Javed, S.A. and Liu, S. (2018), "Evaluation of outpatient satisfaction and service quality of Pakistani healthcare projects: Application of a novel synthetic Grey Incidence Analysis model", Grey Systems: Theory and Application, Vol. 8 No. 4, pp. 462-480. https://doi.org/10.1108/GS-04-2018-0018
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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