Understanding value creation in the health sector: an exploratory investigation.

Healthcare industries have seen recent movements towards continuous improvement for patient’s satisfaction, especially after the decision of regulators to shift towards a more market-driven approach. Therefore, healthcare organizations have been started to focus on customers’ needs to create value and increase their service quality. Although it is apparent that perceptions of service quality are based on multiple dimensions, there is no general agreement regarding their creation. This new paradigm, together with the increased patient usage of online research for diagnosis, has significantly changed the relationship between patients and physicians. For this reason, there is an increasing academic interest on service quality development in healthcare organizations. However, there are very few published studies reporting of the service improvements resulting from feedback satisfaction of patient. The objective of this research is to identify the service quality dimensions for healthcare providers that have an important role on patient satisfaction. It was decided to carry out a qualitative analysis to recognize the following dimensions: (i) relational; (ii) environmental and (iii) technical factors. Common areas of value creation emerged for both medical staff and patients. These results are a first step of analysis aimed at identifying variables within the dimensions. Based on the research evidence, we indicate potential paths for future research.