Applying Two-Dimensional Quality Model for Identifying Critical Factors of Service Quality: A Case Study on Traditional Chinese Medicine Clinic in Taiwan

Objective: Traditional Chinese Medicine clinics (TCM) are small, National Health Insurance and private clinics in Taiwan. Measuring patient satisfaction is very difficult due to limited resources. Therefore, helping these clinics to improve service quality and satisfaction of provided treatment is an important issue for improving performance in TCM.

Methods: This study involved administering a questionnaire to investigate the quality attributes of the TCM clinic and medical service quality to increase patient satisfaction. The Kano two-dimensional quality model questionnaire design for the TCM clinic included pre-treatment (structure), treatment period (process), and post-treatment (outcome). Subjects seeking treatment at a TCM in New Taipei City were sampled. Data was collected and analyzed.

Results: Patients pay attention to service quality. In this study, service quality was classified using attraction quality, one-dimensional quality, must-be quality, or indifferent quality. The 25 TCM clinic medical service quality factors have 2 medical service quality factors that the subjects classified as attractive.

Conclusion: Two attractive qualities were identified as care support issues that involved convenient transportation and waiting room amenities. If TCM clinics wish to attract more patients, these two factors of attractive quality require to be addressed by providing similar services and incorporating future improvement goals to address service quality.