QUALITY OF HEALTHCARE SERVICES IN HOSPITALS OF PAKISTAN: FROM PATIENTS’ PERSPECTIVE

This study is a segment of the series of studies conducted on the hospitals of Peshawar, Pakistan. The aim of the series of the study was an in-depth analysis of the prevailing quality of healthcare services in the hospitals and to contribute in filling up any existing gap and to suggest developments from patients perspective. This part of the study finds the differences in quality healthcare services in the public and private sector hospitals of Peshawar from the patients’ perspective. The differences are measured based on the determinants of healthcare quality using a modified SERVQUAL (Parasuraman et al., 1985, 1988) revealed in the previous parts of the series (Siddiq, Baloch, & Takrim, 2016). The quality of healthcare was measured based on six dimensions as tangibles (infrastructure), responsiveness, process of healthcare, administrative procedures, safety and trustworthiness and empathy. A convenient sample of patients was selected (n = 1200) having treatments from the tertiary level hospitals of Peshawar, Pakistan. The data was analysed and presented using descriptive statistics, reliability analysis, correlation and t-test for independent sample. The study concludes a negligible difference of quality offered by the two sectors hospitals in Peshawar and if private sector is doing a bit good but not everyone can afford the cost, whereas patients have not access to cost effective value of services in public hospitals. The findings suggest continuous improvements using participation of patients’ feedback in the process of strategic developing modern healthcare services with related facilities exclusively in public hospitals in Peshawar. Further, the value-added rewards and facilities to healthcare workforce can help to improve their responsiveness and empathetic attitude towards patients. Cost and leadership interventions are recommended to be included as an isolated dimension of SERVQUAL instrument to measure the cost effective quality of healthcare services in the hospitals having an international standard strategic leadership framework. Similar study is recommended in other cities of Pakistan to develop a homogeneous healthcare system at national level