A Study of the Quality Dimensions and Consumer Satisfaction in Korean Health Examination Service

Abstract

As health care expenditure and aged population are increasing significantly, we encourage taking periodic health examination service nationally to prevent future illness. However, in contrast to other health care services, previous research do not investigate health examination service thoroughly in consumer perspective. Therefore, the purpose of this study focuses on identifying the dimensions of health examination service quality and its influence to customer satisfaction and behavior intentions. We introduce modified SERVPERF to construct the quality dimensions of health examination service. We assume that service quality consists of six dimensions such as tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy, and privacy. To identify each dimension and its impact, we employ structural equation model. We found that these six dimensions converged to five dimensions. Privacy does not construct its dimension, responsiveness and assurance emerged as one and tangibles dimension is split by two factors. The impact of tangibles 1 on consumer satisfaction is significant but the one of tangibles 2 is not. This result complements Parasuraman et al., (1991) and support Carman (1990) of hospital setting. Responsiveness/assurance and tangibles 2 do not significantly affect consumer satisfaction but reliability, empathy, and tangible 1 do. From the relative importance of reliability and empathy, when we implement the strategy for improving service quality, we should focus on them. We also confirm that consumer satisfaction from perceived service quality is contributing the positive behavior intentions of consumers. Therefore, improving service quality will bring more sales by attracting more consumers. The limitation of this research is that sample covers only two health examination centers in Seoul, Korea with similar environment. Therefore, further research, which contains more diverse samples with various contexts, is necessary.