Can Cost and Quality Management-Oriented Innovation Enhance Patient Satisfaction in Medical Tourist Destination?

ABSTRACT

Despite the active contribution, promotion, and emergent in medical tourism, few studies have examined the significant contribution of cost and quality management-oriented innovation on medical tourists. Hospital administrators’ application of knowledge management practices buffers a yardstick for both innovation and patient-oriented. A total of 214 questionnaires were collected from general and functional managers in Iranian hospitals. partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was performed to analyze the data using Smart PLS 3. The findings suggest that both cost- and quality-oriented innovation significantly increase patient satisfaction. Additionally, low-cost and high-quality services stand as mediating variables for patient satisfaction. By emphasizing on innovation and knowledge management, the current study’s results indicate the significance of low-cost and high-quality services for satisfied patients. The study concludes with implications for research and directions for future study. For the first time, the current study proposed a model to examine how low-cost and high-quality services mediates the impact of cost and quality management-oriented innovation on patient satisfaction.

KEYWORDS:

• Medical tourism
• cost management-oriented innovation
• quality management-oriented innovation
• patient satisfaction
• innovation

Disclosure statement

We confirm that there is no known conflict of interest for this study and that there is no financial contribution from any source either partially or fully.

Data availability statement

No data set has been specified by the authors, and the data is collected with confidentiality. The respondents were assured that the raw data would remain confidential and would not be shared.

Ethical statement

The study was approved by the managers of the respective hospitals, and the consent of the respondents was taken.

Informed consent

The authors confirmed that all the contributing authors have read and approved and there are no other persons that satisfied the authorship criteria that were not listed. All the authorship order has been approved by us.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported that there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.