With the change in medical environment, the primary clinics can only survive if they strengthen the quality of their medical services and promote patient satisfaction. While much literature has been done on large-scale medical service organization, few focus on primary clinics. In this study, we developed a patient satisfaction and operational performance model for primary clinics to be used to access the operational management of primary clinics. To do this, we first used the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to evaluate the degree of customer satisfaction. The satisfaction scores, which were used to classify patients, and then used as output variables in Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), which uses linear programming to measure the relative performance of primary clinics. In addition, we used the Herfindahl index (HHI<1,000) to measure competition among primary clinics. Further, we administered an annual questionnaire to characterize the patients. We found that the difference between resources put into operation and degree of patient satisfaction affected the relative performance and competitive advantage of the primary clinics we studied.
With the change in medical environment, the primary clinics can only survive if they strengthen the quality of their medical services and promote patient satisfaction. While much literature has been done on large-scale medical service organization, few focus on primary clinics. In this study, we developed a patient satisfaction and operational performance model for primary clinics to be used to access the operational management of primary clinics. To do this, we first used the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to evaluate the degree of customer satisfaction. The satisfaction scores, which were used to classify patients, and then used as output variables in Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), which uses linear programming to measure the relative performance of primary clinics. In addition, we used the Herfindahl index (HHI<1,000) to measure competition among primary clinics. Further, we administered an annual questionnaire to characterize the patients. We found that the difference between resources put into operation and degree of patient satisfaction affected the relative performance and competitive advantage of the primary clinics we studied.