Service quality evaluation of a geriatric long-term care: A combination of SERVQUAL model and importance-performance analysis

Abstract

To provide better and consistent services, it is critically important for a geriatric long-term care center to identify critical service items and then improve the weaknesses. This study combines service quality (SERVQUAL) model and importance-performance analysis to evaluate the service quality of this particular geriatric long-term care center. The results show that three items belong to major weaknesses, which should be addressed immediately in order to reduce the deficiencies. In contrast to major weaknesses, there are six major items classified into major strengths, which should be maintained to provide service excellence of this geriatric long-term care center in order to establish better and longer relationships with patients in the long-term perspectives. This paper provides a framework of combining SERVQUAL model and importance-performance analysis to evaluate the service quality of a geriatric long-term care center. The proposed framework works well in this case study.