Objectives: This study is to identify the difference of hospital choice factors between internal and external customers at metropolitan and non-metropolitan hospitals.
Methods: The questionnaires are used to collect data from internal customers(hospital employees) and external customers (patients). That is classified with 4 latent variables- such as, physical, human, accessibility, and connection factors. Total used cases are 98 patients and 96 employees on 2 hospitals-Hospital S, located in Seoul and 116 patients and 97 employees in Hospital C, located in non-metropolitan province. Multi group analysis and mean analysis in structural equation model (SEM) is used for analysis of difference between groups.
Results: The hospital choice factors are different significantly between internal and external customers of Hospital C, while there is no gaps in Hospital S. And there is a gap of choice factor between external customers of Hospital S and Hospital C, but not between internal customers of the two hospitals. The internal customers in Hospital S have more accurate information about patient’s hospital choice factors than those in Hospital C. Specially, the internal customers in Hospital C are aware of that the human factor is more important choice factor than other factors.
Conclusions: There are many hospital choice gaps between customers or hospital locations. So each hospital need to make more accurate measurement about customer need/behavior for higher customer satisfaction