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Understanding hospital quality: the case of cumulative and balanced quality

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  • Sidney T. Anderson
  • J. S. Smith

Abstract

A more precise way to conceptualize and operationalize hospital quality is needed to increase hospitals’ productivity. This paper investigates how hospitals’ conformance quality (CQ) and experiential quality (EQ), in terms of their combined magnitude (i.e. their interaction) and relative balance (i.e. the absolute difference between them) impact hospital productivity. First, we explore the impact of both the ‘combined dimension of quality’ and ‘balance dimension of quality’ on hospital productivity. Second, we investigate quality dominance to analyze its impact on productivity when CQ is greater than EQ, and vice versa. Secondary data (January 2015 to December 2015) were collected from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and American Hospital Directory (AHD) for US acute care hospitals. The results provide strong empirical support for the benefit of minimizing the gap between the two types of quality. In addition, the results suggest that considering quality dominance (experiential vs. conformance) might be useful in shedding light on the inherent tension that exists when firms are forced to allocate resources to provide different types of quality simultaneously.

Suggested Citation

  • Sidney T. Anderson & J. S. Smith, 2018. "Understanding hospital quality: the case of cumulative and balanced quality," The Service Industries Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(3-4), pages 182-200, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:servic:v:38:y:2018:i:3-4:p:182-200
    DOI: 10.1080/02642069.2017.1387247
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