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Abstract
This article contributes substantially to healthcare service quality literature and practice by providing a new study to healthcare service quality studies in Saudi Arabia. The purpose of this study is to identify the dimensions that influence healthcare service quality and to explain the patients' views towards healthcare service quality in government hospitals of Arar city. Also, to identify the most influential dimensions of healthcare service quality in the area. The study provides views and perceptions of patients about the healthcare service quality in the Arar's governmental hospitals. A questionnaire was distributed to 732 patients to identify dimensions affecting the healthcare service quality in Arar's government Hospitals. Findings show that the dimensions that contribute significantly to achieve patients' satisfaction regarding the healthcare service quality in government hospitals are the tangibility and empathy dimension. The results also reveal that the level of satisfaction with reliability and safety in government hospitals was average. While the responsiveness dimension is the least influencing healthcare service quality dimension. The findings of this study will help the hospital managers to articulate effective strategies in order to ensure healthcare service quality for patients.
Keywords: healthcare service quality; healthcare; patient satisfaction; SERVQUAL; Northern Border Region; KSA.
1.Introduction
According to World Health Organization (2018) the healthcare quality is defined as: the extent to which health care services provided to individuals and patient populations improve desired health outcomes. In order to achieve this, health care must be safe, effective, timely, efficient, equitable and people centered. In this context, safe means delivering healthcare without risks and harm to patients, including avoiding preventable injuries and reducing medical errors. Effective, means providing healthcare services based on scientific knowledge and evidence-based guidelines. Timely, denotes to reducing delays in providing healthcare services. Efficient, means delivering healthcare in a manner that maximizes resource use and avoids waste. Equitable, refers to delivering healthcare that does not differ in quality according to personal characteristics such as gender, race, ethnicity, geographical location or socioeconomic status. People-centered, indicates to providing care that takes into account the preferences and aspirations of individual service users and the culture of their community.
The Saudi government health care system provides services for the nationals and the non-national citizens, that includes, but not limited to physician consultation, operation, out/inpatient...