Effect of effective patient communication and customer orientation on service quality leading to patient satisfaction: a study of multi-specialty hospitals of North India

Patient satisfaction has remained a cardinal indicator for the measurement of healthcare quality for a long time. It may be considered as a proxy but it is a dominant indicator to measure success of a hospital. As the hospital services are critical in nature and deal with the life and health of patients, effective and quality communication in a perceptive and convincing manner leads to patient satisfaction. Effective communication in hospitals results in patient compliance and better quality of services. The model tries to find out the impact of effective patient communication and customer orientation on service quality and effect of service quality on patient satisfaction. The structural model has been tested with the help of structural equation modelling using partial least square method, on a sample size of 500 patients from selected multi-specialty hospitals of North India. The findings of the study imply that effective patient communication and customer-oriented behaviour significantly impacts the service quality in multi-specialty hospitals which explains substantial variance in patient satisfaction.