Holy Family Red Crescent Medical College Excels In Essay Services, Quality, And Operations.

Establishment and Services

Question:

Case study on Holy Family Hospital.
 

This case study was based on one Holy Family Hospital that was established in the year 1953. This hospital underwent a series of renovations and reforms and later came to be known as Holy Family Red Crescent Hospital in the year 1984. Six years later, the hospital came to be known as Holy Family Red Crescent Medical College. With a bed capacity of 6000, the healthcare facility is run by a team of professors, consultants, Senior and Junior Doctors as well as the auxiliary staffs. The facility also gets reinforcement from a Nursing School that is attached to it.

The healthcare facility discharges various medical services such as Medicine, Gynecology and Obstetrics, Emergency, Cardiology, Nephrology, Pediatric Surgery, Endocrinology, E.N.T, Urology, Dentistry among other minor and major healthcare services.

The healthcare facility had a well-defined and equipped ICU with seven operation theaters that are in good and running condition. The outdoor department is always open 24/7, a system that is entirely taken care of by the morning and evening shifts. The healthcare facility is known to be accommodative to all and sundry, providing competitive healthcare services at relatively competitive rates to the affluent people while also factoring in the poor patients who are also granted access to all services at either minimum charges or no fee at all. It is also worth noting that the hospital has very low-cost outdoor services on a daily basis (working days).

From a marketing approach, Holy Family Red Crescent Medical College does not have an advertising system. They do not have any website to the effect, a prefect explanation as to why there needs to be an adoption of new ways of doing things. 

The quality of services is considered very imperative given the current competition and varying segments in the market. There are some models that have been put in place to determine the quality of services offered in any business providing centers. The quality services GAP is described by the difference that occurs between customer perceptions and their expectations. Typically, customers are known to share beliefs about the services they receive and treat them as a standard. Nonetheless, their perception occurs only after having the experience of the service.

A couple of studies have been conducted to establish the gap between perception and customer expectations. Based on this establishment, customer satisfaction can be measured. Therefore, GAP can best be understood in this manner, “if expectations are found to be greater than performance, then the perceived quality becomes less than the satisfaction, and this amounts to customer dissatisfaction. From the survey at the facility, variation of customer perceptions and expectations is evident. The health facility prides itself in many reputable standards since its inception and yet, still experiences some gaps when it comes to services it renders concerning the quality of food offered, services of the nurses and doctors and the overall infrastructure.

Based on the primary data, there was considerable significance on the services provided by the doctors. On a scale of 1 to 5, none of the ten respondents gave one star. 11 percent of the respondents gave the services a 2 star out of the possible five while 10 percent of the respondents gave a 3 star. The rest of the respondents who were rated the services at 4 out of 5 hence the gap. If the majority of the response is to be given consideration, then one thing is sure, a gap of 2 exists in the overall rating that is given by the majority of the consuming patients.

Marketing Approach

Service recovery is an action that a service provider takes in a bid to counter or give a response to service failure. A service failure occurs if customer perception of the service received does not match their anticipated expectations. As per this description, service recovery does not necessarily confine itself in the service industries. Empirical studies have shown that dealing with issues of attention in the service marketing scenarios in an effective manner constitutes the better part of critical components concerning reputations that come with the failures and institution of systems as well as processes that tackle these problems. It, therefore, goes without saying that service recovery has everything to do with all that it takes to solve the problems of the customers and doing it fast to avoid crises.

While interviewing the respondents in the health facility, it occurred that there were major service failures at the facility. Surprisingly, the facility stakeholders were seen to be reluctant when it comes to initiating steps to avert this loophole despite the persistent failure of the system. In case, a doctor carries out any malpractice in so far as treatment is concerned, the victim (patient), can file a dispute with the administration which will then promptly forward the complaint to top stakeholders of the facility. The senior management, as a matter of duty, will convene an urgent meeting that is constituted by the board of directors and who will institute proper actions against the perpetrator of the anomaly. A case in point is when the facility fired a doctor who was found to be guilty after launching investigations into the wrong medical practices contrary to the code of conduct provisions.

Despite this move that would otherwise be viewed as modest, the directives took considerably long to take shape and the management is aware of the concern. As a result, the facility is trying to improve its delivery and aims at minimizing their mistakes in case a future occurrence becomes imminent. The facility has also set up a suggestion cum complaint box where they receive feedback from patients on a daily basis, notes that are picked daily by the authority for quality control purposes.

Another issue of pressing concern is the lack of fresh blood whenever an emergency occurs among the patients. Though this is a common problem in many hospitals, Holy Family Red Crescent Medical College seems to face many challenges concerning this especially when it comes to having fresh blood from a specific blood group. The management has noted this concern and is targeting a way of procuring fresh blood on a daily basis to help mitigate the problem. On the long run, the facility would consider setting in place, a blood bank.

Another problem at the facility is the huge disparity regarding dissatisfaction or satisfaction among the patients in cabin and ward sections. While having an evaluation of the quality of services among patients in the cabin section, patients seemed to have been very pleased with the kind of services at the facility. Conversely, the patients on the ward section were not as happy with the kind of services they received. Despite the management being in the know of the situation, there is yet to be any actions to arrest the situation and boost satisfaction among these patients.  

Conclusion

The report has considerable information on the service marketing practice in the health facility. The experience of gathering this piece of information is literary considered valuable. Holy Family Red Crescent Medical College has been known for its premier standards in recent years but seems to lose its credence due to their reluctance when it comes to discharging services and failure to set up counteractive measures to avert any failures in their system. 

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