An Assessment of service quality in tertiary hospitals and role of communication for the growth of medical tourism in Asian context including COVID era. An empirical evidence from India

Abstract

Medical tourism is when a person travels to another country for medical care. The most common procedures that people undergo on medical tourism trips include dental care, surgery, cosmetic surgery, fertility treatments, organ and tissue transplantation, and cancer treatment. India is one of the countries which provides tertiary care and quality services at affordable price. India has proved to be one of the leading destinations of medical tourism. COVID has affected the overall medical tourism across the globe.  The main objective of this research was to look for service quality provided by JCI accredited hospitals, challenges faced by the patients after reaching India and how the COVID infection effected the overall medical tourism. Four centers randomly picked up from both northern and southern part of India and their medical facilities, costs and what made patients to choose a particular hospital has been studied. The study included randomly picked up patients from outpatient and inpatient basis over a period from March 2018 till February 2021. A total of 2600 patients from outpatient and 1686 patients from inpatients of 4 hospitals (both medical and surgical branches) were analyzed. Detailed Questionnaire was made, 83% gave the feedback in outpatient and 92% from inpatient, of which overall positive feedback was from 89% and 11% were dissatisfied. Many patients had faced challenges in accommodation, language differences and most of patients were satisfied with care if the nurses’ and food quality were good. Outpatients decreased to 49% and admissions decreased to 52% in the COVID era.  India was chosen by many countries as economically feasible. Patient satisfaction is the key for improvement of medical tourism.