A Study on Strategy for Improving Health Care Service through Quality Function Deployment

QFD방법을 이용한 의료 서비스 개선전략에 관한 연구

It is truism to say that today's customers demand high quality products and services; nevertheless, nowhere is this more prevalent than in the medical industry. Korea's globalization has increased it's citizen's awareness of greater life expectancies and medical improvements in other regions of the globe. Therefore, it is universally essential that in order to be successful in the medical industry, vendors must meet the ever increasing demands of better educated customers. The purpose of this study was twofold: 1) The first objective was discover what health care services are in demand and the quality factors related to these services. 2) The second objective was to determine a strategy for improving health care service through quality function deployment(QFD). One hundred and ninety-five respondents were randomly selected and asked to fill out a questionnaire after having undergone treatment at a medical clinic, located in Daejon, South Korea. The questionnaire was designed to obtain information about both he clients' satisfaction with, and their sense of the value of the medical treatment they received. Penalty-reward analysis and QFD were used to interpret the survey results and to deploy the collective voices of the customers. The results of the penalty-reward analysis illustrated that the 'communication' service quality factor was classified into an excitement factor that incurs no penalty if not achieved but adds value if the requirement is exceeded. As a result of the QFD analysis on the 'communication' service quality factor, eleven strategic alternatives were prioritized, and isolated a vital service quality characteristic. This characteristic can be implemented to bring value-added changes for the improvement of health care services.