Evaluation of healthcare service quality management in an Iranian hospital by using fuzzy logic

Benefits of service quality management in promoting the functions of health systems are well established. A growing number of studies have attempted to measure the quality. However, evaluating service quality in medical centres has received less attention. Moreover, the measurements of the service quality based on the non-fuzzy methods have failed to address the uncertainty associated with patients' judgments. Thus, the present study is an attempt to examine the service quality gap between the expectations and perceptions of patients in healthcare using a fuzzy method. Using a random sampling method, a total of 102 patients were recruited to participate in the study. Data were collected through a standard questionnaire (SERVQUAL) and the gap was measured by a nonparametric Mann-Whitney rank sum test. Analysis of the data showed that the hospitals were able to meet patients' expectations in terms of tangibility and still there is an urgent need to address the inadequacy in different aspects of health service such as empathy, responsiveness, security, and safety. The results of the study can help hospital managers to understand how patients evaluate the quality of healthcare provided. Moreover, the hospitals can discover and recover those aspects of service quality that need more improvement.