SERVICES MARKETING BEHAVIOURAL CONSEQUENCES AND PATIENTS’ SATISFACTION TOWARDS MEDICAL CARE

Relationship marketing is an old idea but a new focus now at the forefront of services marketing practice and academic research. The impetus of its development has come from the maturing of services marketing, with the emphasis on quality, increased recognition of potential benefits for the firm, the customer, and technological advances. Relationship marketing works to attract maintain and enhance client/customer relationship in healthcare provider. Despite the widespread concern in health care literature with patients' satisfaction there has been neither explicit definition of that concept nor systematic consideration of its determinants and consequences. Patients are becoming increasingly involved in making health care choices as their burden of health costs continue to escalate. Physicians and the medical institutions can successfully use the fundamental service marketing to win patient satisfaction and loyalty and remain competitive in today's market economy. Over the past ten years the effects of consumer satisfaction with doctors and medical care services on intentions to seek care and subsequent behavior has gained widespread recognition as a measure of quality in many health sector services. Higher quality of health services come from continuous improvement, a focus on process and intensive staff development and participation which build a service culture. The present attempt to define the concept of patient satisfaction and to hypothesize some of its determinants can be regarded as steps in building a theory of patient satisfaction for the future