An Analytical Study of Customer Perception of TQM Practices and its Impact on Customer Satisfaction in Healthcare Sector

Abstract

This research measures the impact of TQM practice on patient satisfaction in Indian hospitals. Due to an increase in demand for quality health services, hospitals incorporate more comprehensive concepts of TQM such as continuous improvement and commitment of leadership for the enhancement of service delivery. Although TQM is highly adopted in the health sector, fewer empirical works have been done about the direct effects of this approach on patient satisfaction, primarily in India. To that extent, this study aimed to investigate linkage between TQM practices and patients’ perceptual satisfaction within hospitals. The total number of patients for the study was 118, who were given a structured questionnaire from which the quantitative data was obtained. With these, Spearman correlation, Mann-Whitney U test and Kruskal-Walli’s test were applied in the use of SPSS for the data analysis to find the various ways TQM principles were relating patient satisfaction. There is evidence that quality care, staff services, communication, hospital infrastructure, leadership commitment, and staff involvement, are the most essential components driving patient satisfaction. In order to improve patient experiences, integrating technology and improvement programs. The hospitals with priority setting on these TQM principles have higher patient satisfaction and thus improve the effectiveness in operations and the delivery of healthcare.
Policymakers, hospital administrators, and healthcare providers who are working to enhance service quality would benefit from this study. Besides, it adds knowledge in the health sector concerning quality management through research-based recommendations that may optimize the practice of hospital TQM to raise patient satisfaction levels.