COMPARISON OF SERVICE QUALITY BETWEEN PRIVATE AND PUBLIC HOSPITALS: EMPIRICAL EVIDENCES FROM PAKISTAN

Healthcare sector of a country needs special attentions from the government as quality of healthcare provides hope and relief to the patients and their dependents.It also helps to maintain a healthy human capital that contributes in the development of the country. Now quality has become an icon for customers while availing any services or buying a product and it is also a strategic advantage for the organizations to gain success and remain competitive in the market by delivering superior quality of services or products based on customer requirements. The objective of this study is to compare the quality of healthcare services delivered by the public and private hospitals to gain patient satisfaction in Pakistan. For this purpose ‘SERVQUAL’ instrument was used to measure the patient’s perception about service quality delivered by these hospitals. Five service quality dimensions; empathy, tangibles, assurance, timeliness and assurance were used in order to measure the patient’s perceptions about the service quality of public and private hospitals located in the 2nd largest city Lahore, Pakistan . Due to the nature of this study only those respondents were included in the study having perceptions about both the hospitals. Therefore, 320 questionnaires were selected for this study. Results showed that private hospitals are delivering better quality of services to their patients as compared to public hospitals.