Improving the Quality of Health Care Services in Health Centers and Hospitals

Although the issue of “quality” has been widely studied in various industries, little attention has been given to research on the importance of quality in service organizations, specially the quality of health care services in health centers and hospitals. But, it is important to note that improving the quality of health care services is an important issue need to be considered by the managers of health care centers and hospitals. The health care sector has special features that make it different from other sectors, that is, any simple mistake will lead to a major downside. Therefore, health care services should be proposed perfectly considering the professional standards. Measuring the current status of quality of services is also an important issue in health centers and hospitals which also helps to improve the level of services in future and will ultimately lead to attracting more customers, improving market share and benefit in today’s competitive market. Many factors can affect peoples’ perceptions of the quality of health care services in health centers and hospitals. Moreover, as measuring the quality of services depends on peoples’ perceptions, researchers should try to find out various factors affect peoples’ perceptions. These factors will be different in various countries, based on different attitudes, values, and cultures. Furthermore, we hereby propose some factors sound like to be effective in peoples’ perceptions of quality of health care services: clean environment, friendship and supportive climate at health centers and hospitals, quality of equipments, doctors’ skills, accountability and discipline, etc. Many other factors can also be proposed by researchers in different countries and further researches required to expand the insight provided by this manuscript. The studies presented in this special issue provide a conceptual basis for the theoretical understanding of the Iranian experience in healthcare, medicine, science, etc. and implementation in other countries taking into account the differences in culture and infrastructure. These papers can have theoretical and practical value for university professors, students, researchers, managers of health care centers and hospitals, etc.