Understanding quality perception gaps among executives, frontline employees, and patients: the outpatient services in Taiwan hospitals.

The purpose of this study was to identify and evaluate service quality gaps among 3 roles (ie, hospital executives, frontline employees, and outpatients). A modified Chinese SERVQUAL scale was used to pinpoint dimension-specific quality gaps. A total of 1556 subjects (including 685 outpatients, 787 frontline employees, and 84 executives) were randomly selected from 12 middle-sized hospitals across Taiwan. Significant quality gaps among the 3 roles for 5 dimensions were found. Accordingly, strategies and tactics for improving service quality of hospitals are discussed.