Service Quality Improvement During Availability Crisis in a Military Clinic

Objective: Studies in service quality have demonstrated that limiting factors such as long waiting time, overcrowding in the waiting room and low staff motivation, have an impact on the patient's perception of the service quality he receives. This study's purpose was to examine the influence of measures taken to improve the patient's satisfaction on his perception of service quality at periods of diminished dentist availability. Methods: Four measures were targeted: improvement of the service environment, boosting human relations between staff and patients, marketing the dental clinic, and raising staff motivation. A year after imposing those measures, the patients' perception of service quality was measured by two methods. First, a Service Quality Survey, produced and supervised by the Air Force sociology center in which 269 soldiers evaluated availability, professionalism and courteousness of 95 service units, including the dental clinic. In the second method, 39 patients of the dental clinic, arbitrarily selected, filled an internal service quality questionnaire in which they evaluated 13 service quality elements. In both methods the scale ranged between 1 and 6 as indicative for lowest and highest degree of satisfaction, respectively. Results: The Service Quality Survey determined a mean score of 5.09 and 4.91 following and prior to the implementation of the improvement measures, respectively. Specifically, the scores for availability, professionalism, and courteousness raised from 4.77 to 4.82, from 4.95 to 5.18. and from 5.01 to 5.28, respectively. The clinic's internal questionnaire showed high satisfaction (ranging between 4.56 and 5.58) of all improvement measures taken. Most interestingly, the satisfaction from clinic availability increased despite the reduced dentist availability. Conclusion: The effect of reduced dentist availability can be compensated by boosting other service quality factors. Thus, patient's satisfaction will not only be maintained but may even increase.