The Role of Hospital Services Quality on Hospital Brand Preference in Health Services Marketing

The growing importance of hospitals in improving the physical and mental health has led the focus on improving service quality and hospitals have considered it as a major competitive advantage. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of improving services quality on brand preference in healthcare industry.
This is a descriptive and applied study. A sample of 394 patients have been selected using stratified and convenient sampling. Questionnaire were used for collecting primary data; for data analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling techniques were used in LISREL 8/80 and SPSS 19. Data analysis was used to confirm the relationships between variables.
Research findings indicate significant positive effect of service quality on patient satisfaction, and their loyalty and hospital’s brand equity. The impact of patient satisfaction on their loyalty to the hospital and the loyalty on hospital’s brand equity has been supported. Finally, the effect of hospital brand equity on hospital brand preference was confirmed.
According to the results, it can be suggested that hospitals management take some measures for improving service quality that can improve hospital brand preference among other hospitals, both spreading justly public health in all layers of society as well as increasing profitability.