The increasing
demand of quality medical services of private hospitals in the Republic of the
Philippines gives an increasing pressure to the medical service marketers in
the country. Furthermore, the medical
private care business in the Philippines tries to pattern its services to the
world class standards of the World Health Organization, National Health
Service, Joint Commission International and other international accrediting
organizations for world class medical service and tourism. Congruently, the research tries to evaluate
the status of medical service quality satisfaction of consumers of private
hospitals in the Republic of the Philippines in which the content of the
research will add knowledge to the status and determinants for further
improvement of private medical care service of the Republic of the Philippines.
Observing the samples of 400
respondents the objective is to determine by the given independent variables to
its significant difference of the dependent variables.
By
considering the components of SERVQUAL to realize the elements of dependent
variables, consumer behavior satisfaction of medical service in the Philippines
can be conceptualized considering the different customer behavior of medical
service consumers.
The research
emphasizes the importance of SERVQUAL to the empirical evaluation of the study
and the usefulness in a hospital service environment. The SERVQUAL scale is suited to the marketing
perspective of service oriented organization in which this research adopted the
method as dependent variables comparing to the demographic characteristics of
medical service consumers.
The
research uses the inferential statistics of measuring the consumer satisfaction
by independent sample T-Test and analysis of variance. The result of the research considers the
mathematical implication measurement of .05 as the level of significance of the
study. The findings resulted to consider
tangibles (Sig..000), reliability (Sig..000), responsiveness (Sig..000),
assurance (Sig..000), and empathy (Sig..005) in relation to racial group
demographic variable. For gender
demographic variable, tangible (Sig..035) is considered high in significance. For age demographic variable, tangibles
(Sig..046) are also considered significant. For marital status demographic
variable, tangibles (Sig..017) and responsiveness (Sig..030) are considered as
significant. For occupation demographic,
variable tangibles (.000) was only considered significant. Also, for education demographic, variable
tangible (Sig..005), responsiveness (Sig..041), assurance (Sig..017), and
empathy (Sig..015) are considered significant in difference.
Introduction
of the Study
Globally,
the medical service offered by the private and profit oriented medical
organizations gives a different perspective of the health status of a given
country. Thus, the World Health Organization
aims to a more globalized and equal public health by reducing the health
depressed countries in experiencing the expensive medical expenditure. Profit
oriented medical services vary from country to country, according to the
economic, political, sociological, and cultural stability, which contributes to
the negative inequality of medical service in a given country as a whole (Woodward et al., 2001).
Accordingly,
Sahay (2001) considers the continuing need of acquiring a global standardized
medical infrastructure to achieve an equal medical treatment in a global
perspective. Poor infrastructures from the
developing countries are driven by a lack of funds to acquire advance medical
equipments and high rate tax being set by the government to privately owned
medical organizations. Furthermore, the
effect of high tariffs in importing medical equipments from other countries
gives a higher markup to the fees issued to the patients. Consumers in private hospitals are expecting a
higher quality of medical service due to the high hospital fee being
issued. The continuous upgrading of
information technology infrastructure in the medical care of private medical
organizations in the Philippines helps the country’s medical service quality
meet with the standards expected by the international accrediting body such as
the Joint Commission International Accreditation.
The
migration of top medical workers from the Philippines resulted to a great
negative effect in the medical service quality being served to the public. The acquisition of high technology hospital
equipments from other countries is ineffective without the participation of the
human resource expertise which will operate the modern hospital equipments in
the twenty first century (Aiken et al., 2004).
The
insurance issued by the Philippine government to the public had unsatisfactory
effect on the patients when it is being used to the privately owned
hospital. The benefits being allowed by
the government to patients in privately owned medical organization cannot cover
the high hospital and professional fee being issued by the privately owned
hospital. Thus, patients will resort to other
private international and domestic insurance companies and will get more cash
from the patient’s savings account to cover the expenses issued by the medical
organization (Obermann et al., 2005).
Nationally,
the price hike of pharmaceutical products gives a concrete reason why high
hospital fees being asked to patients are high in price. Consequently, the
continued acquisition of the branded pharmaceutical products owned by the
multinational companies gives quality medicine to hospitals but with a high
price that gives the patients high medical fees. As of the year 1988, the legislation of
Republic Act (RA) 6675 commonly known as the generic act, was implemented.
Also, it reduced the price of pharmaceutical products from 75 percent to 95
percent. Recently, Republic Act (RA)
9502 also known as “Universally Accessible Cheaper and Quality Medicines Act of
2008” gives the generic pharmaceutical companies time to prove their
capabilities in competing the pharmaceutical market in the Philippines with
high quality standards. With this
regard, it is not only the small pharmaceutical business players that are
benefiting the act but also the people in general (Sobrepeña, 2009).
People
from local provinces in the Philippines have difficulty to reach the private
owned medical hospitals for treatment.
The accessibility and expensiveness of transportation and hospital fees
gives the patients option to go to the government hospitals with low medical
expertise that results to a higher mortality rate in a national perspective
(Herva et al., 1999). In addition, Wong
(1999) studied the continued cases of acute heart strokes in Asia and the
Philippines. More and more Filipinos are
suffering from severe heart problems due to poor eating habits and lack of
physician’s consultation caused by expensive physician’s fee and inaccessible
hospitals from the provinces.
The
Philippines is situated in the Western border of the Pacific Rim with 7,107
islands with a total of 117,187 square miles.
Its population is 88% Catholic Christian and 4% are Muslim Malay. The Philippines has about 86,264,000 in
population as of early 2009. The culture
of Philippines is a mixture of several countries which colonized the island
from the Spanish Colonization in 1521 before it gained the self-governing
commonwealth of the United States. After
World War II, the Philippines achieved their independence on July 4, 1946. By the year 1950, the Philippines is only the
second to Japan in terms of economic stability.
However, when Ferdinand Marcos took into power from 1965 to 1986, many
government policies were changed and the economic status of the Philippines
drop rapidly until the President Aquino’s Administration came to power. The
government policies, including healthcare revision of the government standards,
are being ratified in 1986. In as much
as President Fidel V. Ramos, Joseph E. Estrada, and Gloria M. Arroyo try to
save the ailing economy, the Philippines is challenged to cope with the fast
moving economy around Asia. (De Vera et
al., 2008).
At
this time, the Philippines is still in the status of being dependent from the
aid of United States and other developed countries in terms of medical
equipments, hospital equipments, and pharmaceutical supplies. The economic stability of the country affects
greatly the local people’s capacity to send themselves and other members of the
family to hospitals for medical treatment (Shen & Williamson, 1999).
The
Department of Health of the Philippines are creating programs and strategic
ways that the Filipino people in general can avail the prescribe medicines
given by the physicians. The new set of
price reduction specifies certain medical drug that gives a great positive
outcome to the top listed health illnesses in the country. Despite the encouragement of the government
to reduce pharmaceutical selling prices, the need for affordable and product
quality pharmaceuticals are still a great concern to the pharmaceutical market
in the Philippines. The operating cost
in manufacturing pharmaceutical products still matters when it comes to pricing
in the actual market. With this concern
the medical service as a whole is being affected by the availability of medical
supplies and hospital supplies in aiding the day to day service being rendered
to medical service consumers (Department of Health of the Philippines, 2010).
The
World Health Organization conveys the capability of every Filipino household to
send their relatives to hospitals and acquire the right medical attention
needed. As medical health awareness increases more quality and affordable
hospital infrastructures as well as pharmaceutical products are needed in order
to balance the quality of medical services in the Philippines. With this manner, quality services not only
in public but also in private hospitals will be affordable. (World Health
Organization, 2009)
Statement of the Problem
This inquiry intends to determine
the customers’ satisfaction of the Filipino people towards the private medical
services in the Philippines.
Specifically it attempts to find answers to the following questions:
1. What is the level of customer satisfaction for
hospital services in terms of tangibles, reliability, responsiveness,
assurance, and empathy?
2. Are there significant differences in the
customer satisfaction for hospital services when being classified according to
racial group, gender, age, marital status, occupation, and education?
3. Which of the selected variables significantly
contribute to the customer satisfaction of the Filipinos toward the private medical
services in the country?
Research Objectives
The aim of the research is to
measure the consumer satisfaction of Filipinos in the Philippines towards
medical service. The study considers
different aspects both behavioral and technical sides of medical service that
is being observed through the dependent variables of the study on the irregular
manners of customers segment in medical service consumers in the Philippines.
The study further aims to
determine the present level of consumer satisfaction for medical service in the
Philippines.
Moreover, the objective
determines the dependent variables:
- Tangibles
- Reliability
- Responsiveness
- Assurance
- Empathy
Also, its significant
differences to the dependent variables:
- Racial group
- Gender
- Age
- Marital status
- Occupation
- Education
Scope of the Research
The research measures the given
variables by getting samples through questionnaire provided to outpatients and
inpatients or representatives of patients’ from 16 years old and above. The range of this study covers the
respondents from the selected private hospitals in the Philippines. The research covers equal private hospital
samples for testing from the given cities in the Philippines. As of this time, The Philippines is comprised
of 1,728 licensed hospitals, from which 1,061 are the private hospitals and 667
are the government hospitals. In the
government hospitals, 72 hospitals are under the supervision of Department of
Health, 5 military hospitals, and 590 local government hospitals. The overall hospital beds in the Philippines
are 85,040 (Department of Health of the Philippines, 2009).
The areas being selected as the
spotlight in getting the samples are from the cities randomly selected in the
Philippine archipelago.
The researcher satisfies the
required samples by getting the actual data from the private hospitals namely.
- Silliman University Hospital
–Dumaguete City- Visayas Islands
- Cebu Doctors University
Hospital- Cebu City- Visayas Islands
- (Baptist Hospital) Mindanao
Medical Center- General Santos City- Mindanao Islands
Significance of the
Study
1. The
most important aspect in medical service is the consumer satisfaction in the
given country. The performance of
medical services will determine the mortality rate of the whole country’s
population.
2. Accordingly,
both private and public hospitals will contribute to the whole performance of
healthcare in the Philippines. This research will give knowledge for any further
business improvement in private medical care sector of the Philippines and can
contribute to the healthcare service in the Philippines in a bigger context.
3. The
medical care in the Philippines will be upgraded based from the formulated
outcome of the research.
FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE RESEARCH PLEASE FOLLOW THE LIBRARY WEBSITE LINK OF ASSUMPTION UNIVERSITY BELOW FOR MORE INQUIRY AND STATISTICAL REFERENCE OF THE RESEARCH STUDY:
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