An examination of the association between service convenience flexibility in healthcare delivery systems and patient satisfaction

Abstract

Healthcare organizations are increasingly faced with improvement in service provision and developing strategies to provide convenient services to the patients. Flexibility considered as a competitive capability is used by healthcare organizations in order to respond to fluctuating patient demands. In this paper, service convenience flexibility is proposed as a new dimension of flexibility in the healthcare context. Several aspects of service convenience flexibility in healthcare context are explored and critically examined. An exploratory study is carried out in a public healthcare system to investigate the capability of service convenience from a flexibility perspective. Different strategies for services convenience flexibility are suggested. Furthermore, the impact of service convenience flexibility on patient satisfaction is also identified.