Medical Tourists’ Perception of Service Quality in Children’s Medical Center of Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Background: Medical tourism is one of the most influential factors in industrial growth and development. To increase medical tourism, it is crucial to promote the quality of medical care and facilities to the level of international standards. This study aimed at identifying service quality as perceived by medical tourists admitted to the children’s Medical center of Tehran.
Methods: All patients admitted to the children’s Medical center between years 2014 and 2015, in all hospital wards, were included. For data collection, a 24-item questionnaire and the Likert scale for scoring were used. The reliability of the questionnaire was assessed with Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient, which was 0.87. The data was presented as descriptive measures.
Results: The findings revealed that therapeutic care and facilities were rated as “good”, by 56.67% and 65% of the patients, respectively. The clarity of medical costs was rated as “very poor” by 50% of the patients. Furthermore, payment system was clearly causing problems for a large percentage of patients (48.33%), mainly due to the weak currency exchange capability.
Conclusions: The findings of this study suggest that the center has satisfactory medical services and therapeutic care, however, it fails to provide a good payment service and enough currency exchange counters for the patients, which need proper planning and monitoring.