Patients Satisfaction towards Aravind Eye Care Hospital in Madurai City

Customers may decide to select the service or product based on the quality which has been considered as a strategic benefit for any business to gain and sustain in the market for a longer time. Products quality can be measured but the services qualities are not tangible to measure, it is depends upon the perceptions and exceptions of the customers. Perceptions and expectations of patients are considered to be the major indicator to assess the service quality of healthcare organization, because it is also highly competitive. In today’s dynamic business environment from the firm’s point of view it is about to build and sustain a strong relationship with their customers by understanding the ingredients of customer satisfaction and Hospitals sectors also need to do this. Hospitals are also classified on the basis of services provided. The various types of hospitals like Dental Hospitals, Eye Care Hospitals, Fertility Care Hospitals, Cancer Hospitals, Children Hospitals, Maternity Hospitals, Orthopedic Hospitals etc., among the various hospitals, eye care hospitals play a vital role. They provide treatments for various eye related problems. One of the big eye care hospital in Madurai is Aravind Eye Care Hospitals. The present generations are using technology in various forms to complete their task, which may lead to face some eye problems like Low Vision, Eye Irritation, Eye strain and many more. Need of Eye Care Hospital plays important role to overcome such problems. The present study focused on the patients’ satisfaction and perception towards Aravind Eye Care Hospital.


Introduction
In India, Aravind Eye Care Hospitals is a hospital chain. In the year of 1976, Dr. Dr.Govindappa Venkataswamy (popularly known as Dr. V) was established the Aravind Eye Care Hospital in Madurai, Tamil Nadu in 1976. It has had a great impact to eradicate the cataract eye problem related to blindness in India, grown into a network. By the year 2012, nearly 32 million patients had treatments and 4 million surgeries were done by Aravind Eye Care Hospitals. Across the world, Aravind Eye Care hospitals much-admired and become a focus for numerous cases studied. The founder of the hospital has a vision to eradicate the eye problems in India. The Hospital began performing surgeries on a large scale with treatment being free or heavily subsidized for the poor cross subsidized by the paying patients. Aravind Eye Care Hospital established an outreach program wherein Doctors reach out to remote villages to conduct Eye Camps, sometimes in association with various organizations.

Statement of the Problem
As the Eye Care industry shifts towards managed competition and a modern era of Eye Care, information for positioning an entire organization to meet patient requirements effectively will become growingly essential.
Hospital industry has started witnessing cutthroat competition in recent years. Quality of service has also been shown to be an important driver of patient satisfaction both from theoretical point of view and empirically substantiated in a variety of industries including service industries.
So the research has been carried out to find the factors influencing the patients to select the Hospital, to understand patients' dissatisfaction and to determine the problems wherein the hospitals need to focus and to strengthen their patient relationship management practices.

Scope of the Study
Now-a-days everyone using the Smart Phone and Laptop or Computer for a long time because of that Eye are much affected. So the researchers have chosen to study the perception and level of patients' satisfaction and loyalty towards services offered by Aravind Eye Care Hospital. The study has been undertaken from the point of view of the respondents of Aravind Eye Care Hospital in Madurai.  Alaloola and Albedaiwi (2008) conducted research survey to find patient satisfaction. Based on the analysis it was conclude that patients' had satisfaction with the room facilities and respectful staff. Patients were significantly dissatisfied with not explaining procedures and physicians not introducing themselves. Alhashem, et al., (2011) in this article that the researcher measured the quality of patient satisfaction as one of the most important indicators. The objective of the study to find out the factors which are affect the patients satisfaction at primary health care clinics. The questionnaires were distributed in primary healthcare clinics that represent all health care regions. A total of 400 completed questionnaires, out of 500, were returned resulting in a response rate of 85.2 percent. The 87% of the patients responded that the time for communication between physician and patient was not enough. 79% of the surveyed patients said they would go to the emergency room of the hospital in future if needed instead of going to the primary care clinic. Regarding the quality of the communication relationship between physician and patients most of the respondents responded negatively.

Review of Literature
Arun Kumar, et al., (2012) in his study entitled "Service Quality at Hospital -A Study of Apollo Hospital in Mysore". The objective is to examine the service quality influence on patient loyalty towards Apollo hospital of Mysore. It can be measured based on some dimensions named as SERVQUAL, in which four dimensions like responsiveness, empathy, reliability and tangible were considered. Finally the study concluded that all such dimensions are optimistically related to patient's loyalty.

Methodology of the Study Research Design: Descriptive and Analytical
Research Design.

Determination of Sample Size
Sample Size: 100 Sampling Technique: Convenient sampling technique Sources of Data Primary Source: Structured questionnaire was used to collect the data. Simple Percentage Method, Garrett Ranking Method was adopted to measure the responses. Secondary Data: Official website, Journals

Method of Data Collection: Google form
Framework of Analysis Inferential Statistics: Chi-Square, Correlation, ANOVA and t-Test were adopted to measure the responses.

H0
There is no significant relationship between age group of the respondents and level of perception.

H1
There is significant relationship between age group of the respondents and level of perception.

H0
There is no significant difference between monthly incomes with regard to convenient visit to Aravind Eye Care Hospital. Correlation

H1
There is significant difference between monthly incomes with regard to visit to Aravind Eye Care Hospital.

H0
There is no significant difference between visits with regard to hospital location.

One way ANOVA H1
There is significant difference between visits with regard to c hospital location.

H0
There is no significant difference between purchases of opticals with regard to price of opticals.

H1
There is significant difference between purchases of opticals with regard to price of opticals. From table, it is inferred that the P value (0.011) is more than 0.010, the null hypothesis is rejected at 5% level of significance. So there is significant difference between Age and Level of Perception of different sectors in Aravind Eye Care Hospital.

Limitations of the Study
In the below table monthly income and number of time visit to hospital were positively correlated at 0.019, and the P value is 0.854, so it is determined that "There is no significant relationship between the monthly income of respondents and Level of Perception on convenient location of Aravind Eye Care Hospital" is Accepted.

Correlation
Monthly It is inferred that P value (0.238) is less than 0.050, the null hypothesis is rejected. Thus, it is concluded that there is significant difference monthly visit to hospital with regard to hospital location. P value (0.000) is less than 0.10, t is determined that there is highly significant difference between purchase of opticals with regard to price of opticals. Mean factor 2.260 for The friendliness and courtesy of the receptionist is given as First Rank, for factor 2.230 time that the doctor spent with you is given as Second Rank and for factor 2.120 the caring concern of nurses/medical assistants is given as Third Rank depends upon the opinion.

Conclusion
Patient Satisfaction is an increasing important issue both in evaluation and shaping of Eye Care, it should be carried out routinely in all aspects of Eye Care to improve the quality of Services. Patient attending Aravind Eye Care Hospital are responsible for spreading the good image of the Hospital and equally important for hospital management to Satisfy Patients. The study concluded that the Aravind Eye Care Hospital should concentrate more on patients satisfaction in hospital facility services like drinking water facility, fans and lightning facility and so on should be satisfied more.