The effects of a transfer to new premises on patients' perceptions of service quality in a general hospital in Greece

Abstract

Many researchers have examined the service quality of healthcare organisations, but none of them examined the effects of a transfer to new premises on service quality. The purpose of this study is to explore the effects of new facilities on patients' perception of the quality of services in the General Hospital of Katerini in Greece. To do so, we compare three different researches about service quality and used the gap analysis method and paired – samples t-test to define if perceptions and expectations of service quality among the quality dimensions were significant (p < .05). The transfer to new premises and new medical equipment have substantially improved the five dimensions but not to the extent that they could be considered a complete service improvement. The results confirmed all of our five research hypotheses. The transfer to new premises most affects the ‘tangibles’ dimension. At the same time, the remaining four dimensions of service quality were, on the whole, positively influenced.

Keywords:

• SERVQUAL
• Greece
• tangible attributes