DEVELOPMENT OF A FRAMEWORK FOR EVALUATION OF QUALITY OF EMERGENCY CARE SERVICES OF INDIAN HOSPITALS

Abstract

Healthcare is an important service industry and under its aegis, the emergency healthcare service systems are essential for saving precious lives. It has become an integral part of hospital establishments. Promptness with superior quality is essential for the success of such services. This paper aims to assess the service quality of emergency healthcare departments of hospitals by developing a service quality index based on factors that influence emergency healthcare. Numerous factors impact service quality and these factors consist of various sub-factors. The various factors that affect the service quality of emergency healthcare services are identified through literature and field surveys. A structural methodology involving graph theory and matrix is employed for analyzing the interrelationships among various service quality factors. The directed graph (digraph) is employed to represent the interrelationships among various factors influencing service quality in hospital emergency departments. Each node in the digraph symbolizes a specific quality-influencing factor, and the edges represent the degrees of interrelationships between these. The equivalent matrix derived from the digraph leads to the establishment of an emergency healthcare service quality function, ultimately contributing to the evaluation of the emergency care service quality index (ECSQI). A higher value of the service quality index indicates that the emergency department's organization and functioning are deemed adequate. The adapted methodology can be practically applied to evaluate and compare the service quality of different hospital emergency departments. The insights gained from such assessments can assist emergency department managers in devising effective strategies to enhance service quality and overall patient satisfaction.