A five-senses perspective to quality in hospitals

How sensory marketing affects perceived service quality and customer satisfaction: study in Vietnam public hospitals

PURPOSE

This article aims to assess the impact of factors affecting the senses (via Sensory Marketing theory) on customer perceived quality and satisfaction when using health services in public hospitals. Based on the results, the research proposes solutions for public hospitals to improve the service experience to increase customer satisfaction in Vietnam generally and in developing countries particularly.

DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH

The authors used 619 respondents' non-convenient probability sampling method, focusing on objects experienced with public hospital services in Vietnam. A preliminary quantitative study (n = 113) and qualitative research (n = 20) have been conducted to finalise the designed questionnaire before conducting a formal quantitative survey. Cronbach Alpha, CFA and SEM have been used to explore the meanings of the data collected.

FINDINGS

The result showed that through Sensory Marketing, sensorial stimulus (tactile, sight, smell and taste) significantly impacts customer satisfaction with medical services at the public hospital. Research findings are the premise to conclude that the application of the Sensory Marketing model creates a great sensory experience, and minimises negative psychological feelings in the medical, especially in a prioritised personalisation society.

PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS

The authors open up a new health service quality and satisfaction assessment tool based on the original human senses that were previously applied in researching other services, it has been proven to be successfully applied to specific service areas such as healthcare. This research is believed to provide valuable implications for medical service stakeholders and policymakers to improve service quality and enhance the customer experience and satisfaction level through sensorial approaches, strategies and tactics.

ORIGINALITY/VALUE

While most studies on customer satisfaction in the medical field use SERVQUAL, SERVPERF or KQCAH model, this study breaks the research gap by not only affirming and strengthening the research perspective on Sensory Marketing but also contributing to creating a solid theoretical framework on perceived service quality and satisfaction.

Incorporation of the emotional indicators of the patient journey into healthcare organization management

BACKGROUND

In recent years, attempts have been made to incorporate patients' experiences into healthcare processes, to complement clinical indicators, with what are known as patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) and patient-reported experience measures (PREMs). While the research into PROMs is more developed, the application of PREMs faces some difficulties. The incorporation of emotional indicators into assessments of the experience is an area that remains to be explored.

OBJECTIVES

This study proposes a new technique to analyse the emotions experienced by patients during the care process, examines how these emotions influence their satisfaction and propose that if healthcare services focus more on patients' emotions, they can improve the effectiveness of the sector.

METHODS

The first, qualitative stage, gathered data from patients to design a patient journey (PJ). The PJ was then reproduced as a video. In a subsequent, quantitative stage, the video was shown to experimental participants, and their emotions were measured through facial expression analysis and a questionnaire.

RESULTS

A new technique to gather emotional data showed that the emotions patients experience do not affect their satisfaction with their clinical care or the physical aspects of the process. However, their emotions did affect their satisfaction with people and organizations.

CONCLUSIONS

The importance of the emotional component of patients' experiences was underlined. Therefore, healthcare organizations should take account of this dimension, as well as the cognitive, to increase patient satisfaction and improve their care processes. Understanding the impact of the emotions identified at the subconscious level can help improve the patient experience. A new methodology was applied that may help health professionals to collect emotional data about patients' experiences and to develop PREMs.

PATIENT/PUBLIC CONTRIBUTION

Patients were involved in all stages of this research. In the exploratory phase, some helped define the touchpoints of the PJ. The data from the subsequent experimental phase were collected from another group, and the emotions they experienced were identified through the analysis of their facial expressions. Based on the results of this study, a working group including patients has been established to work on improvements in the PJ.

Patient hospital experience and satisfaction on social media

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to show the value of open-ended narrative patient reviews on social media for elucidating aspects of hospital patient satisfaction.

Design/methodology/approach

Mixed methods analyses using qualitative (manual content analyses using grounded theory and algorithmic analyses using the Natural Language Toolkit) followed by quantitative analyses (negative binomial regression).

Findings

Health-care team communication, health-care team action orientation and patient hospital room environment are positively related to patient hospital satisfaction. Patients form their hospital satisfaction perceptions based on the three facets of their hospital stay experience.

Research limitations/implications

In the spirit of continuous quality improvement, periodically analyzing patient social media comments could help health-care teams understand the patient satisfaction inhibitors that they need to avoid to offer patient-centric care.

Practical implications

By periodically analyzing patient social media comments hospital leaders can quickly identify the gaps in their health service delivery and plug them, which could ultimately give the hospital a competitive advantage.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first studies to apply mixed methods to patient hospital review comments given freely on social media to critically understand what drives patient hospital satisfaction ratings.

Impact of sensory interventions on the quality of life of long-term care residents: a scoping review

INTRODUCTION AND PURPOSE

Residents in long-term care exhibit diminishing senses (hearing, sight, taste, smell or touch). The purpose of this study was to examine the available literature on the impact of sensory interventions on the quality of life of residents living in long-term care settings.

METHODS

We conducted a mixed-methods scoping review using Arksey and O'Malley's framework. Seven databases (Medline (Ovid), PubMed (non-Medline-Ovid), CINAHL (EBSCO), Embase (Ovid), Ageline, PsycINFO (Ovid), Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials until 1 December 2020) were searched. Two reviewers independently screened the studies for sensory interventions using a two-step process. Eligible studies underwent data extraction and results were synthesised descriptively.

RESULTS

We screened 5551 titles and abstracts. A total of 52 articles met our inclusion criteria. Some interventions involved only one sense: hearing (n=3), sight (n=12), smell (n=4) and touch (n=15). Other interventions involved multiple senses (n=18). We grouped the interventions into 16 categories (music programmes, environmental white noise, bright light interventions, visual stimulations, olfactory stimulations, massages, therapeutic touch, tactile stimulations, physical activity plus night-time programmes, pet therapies, various stimuli interventions, Snoezelen rooms, motor and multisensory based strategies, Namaste care, environmental modifications and expressive touch activities).

CONCLUSION

This preliminary review summarised some of the available sensory interventions that will help inform a series of future systematic reviews on each of the specific interventions. The evidence-based knowledge for sensory interventions will also inform a future audit programme for assessing the presence of sensory interventions in long-term care.

Engagement in Healthcare Systems: Adopting Digital Tools for a Sustainable Approach

The rapid development of new technologies has created interesting and unexpected possibilities in e-health, and digital platforms have become widespread, connecting users, experts, and practitioners of the health world. This triggered our investigation into the relationship between the engagement platforms used by 293 doctors with various specializations, their satisfaction, and the dimensions of social sustainability in the healthcare sector. The research focused on professional interaction and its sphere of action in engagement platforms, defined as virtual contact points for exchanging information, thus increasing the co-creation of value between physicians and patients. In order to verify our hypothesis, a health digital platform called paginemediche.it was used, and the two dimensions of engagement and sustainability were considered, examining their causal relationship and evaluating their effects on physician loyalty in terms of the re-use of the digital platform by doctors. Our results, using a multiple linear regression analysis, showed that the social sustainability of the digital health platform was directly influenced by online engagement, generating a positive effect on physician loyalty. In particular, the human dimension of social sustainability proved to be decisive for the re-use of the platform.

Waiting too long: bottlenecks and improvements – a case study of a surgery department

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to promote a business process approach for developing and improving the efficiency of hospital service quality in order to reduce clinical risks and increase patients satisfaction. The problems healthcare facilities face are how to reduce waste and risk and improve quality. The adoption of a process-focused organization could reduce organizational errors which have a negative influence on performance.

Design/methodology/approach

The research is based on a case study methodology, analyzing a specific real-life case. It is shown a practical example in the surgery department of an Italian hospital, identifying, analyzing and managing critical situations, in terms of improvement. To this end, national and international contributions, public documents, institutional websites, conference papers, books, workshops and hospital websites have been analyzed. Moreover, other data were collected through questionnaires.

Findings

Results show how a comprehensive view of the processes may lead to improvement in operations by identifying different risks and bottlenecks, suggesting the rapid implementation of corrective policies and improvements, in terms of overall efficiency.

Practical implications

By implementing innovative organizational processes to identify and reduce bottleneck a healthcare system could achieve a competitive advantage.

Originality/value

Within the Italian healthcare system, limited attention has been paid to the design of healthcare facilities. Flexible solutions are necessary for lean management. The originality of this work lies in the analysis applied to a complex organization, through which hidden critical situations have been identified, and solutions to improve and provide better healthcare management have been suggested.

Improving service quality in healthcare organisations through geomarketing statistical tools

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how geomarketing statical tools (notably, gravitational models) can support healthcare organisations to improve the quality of their services.

Design/methodology/approach

Geomarketing tools were applied to the analysis of data (91,478 observations) concerning the performance of nuclear magnetic resonance.

Findings

Geomarketing models can support and enhance the planning of service provisions of healthcare organisations. Drawing the planning actions on the patient needs and actual behaviours allow the healthcare organisations to obtain better market performance.

Practical implications

The results support the health service planning activities related to covering the so-called “offer gaps”.

Originality/value

This is the first study to apply geomarketing to improve the quality of healthcare services.

Servicescape navigation

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to profile wayfinders into homogeneous sub-groups according to their wayfinding ability, and to investigate the differences between the clusters identified and their evaluations of satisfaction.

Design/methodology/approach

This study uses survey data collected in a hospital in the Northern part of Italy. The survey questionnaire assessed the participants’ self-estimation of wayfinding ability in terms of wayfinding competence, wayfinding strategy and wayfinding anxiety, as well as the wayfinder’s satisfaction.

Findings

The findings propose that three factors, namely, individual orientation skills, confidence in servicescape elements and anxiety control, contribute to defining wayfinding ability. Based on these factors, cluster analysis reveals three profiles of wayfinders, as follows: the Easy Goings, the Do-it-yourselves and the Insecures. Group differentiation comes from wayfinding ability and customer satisfaction levels.

Research limitations/implications

The results of this study advance the segmentation literature by analyzing different types of wayfinding ability that can lead to different satisfaction levels.

Practical implications

These findings will help service managers improve servicescape design and help them formulate effective targeting strategies.

Originality/value

While previous research outlined the importance of some factors such as gender differences, familiarity with the service environment and cognitive approaches, this study recommends the examination of the profile of visitors to the service setting to allow them to find their way more effectively.