The Quality Assessment of Public Health Services in China: with Effects of Chinese Culture

The purpose of this study was to examine the healthcare service quality in Chinese public hospitals and took the effect of Chinese culture into consideration. In order to model a context-specific healthcare service model, the present study utilized literature review and consultation from a medical expert focus group to develop 10 dimensions, namely physical environment, clinical staff behavior, service charge, waiting time, expertise/professionalism, patient privacy, right to know, patient-physician relationship, and healthcare outcome. Meanwhile, 3 Chinese cultural characteristics, namely power distance, collectivism and long term orientation, were added to the instrument in order to examine the influence of Chinese culture. The whole model was thus contained healthcare service dimensions and cultural dimensions. The study population was identified as outpatient. The sample size was 100 and samples were selected from public hospitals in 4 Chinese cities. Informants were asked to score their perception towards received healthcare service, satisfaction and cultural characteristics.