Service quality and patients' satisfaction in medical tourism.

Medical tourism is a term initially coined to describe the rapidly-growing practice of traveling across international borders to obtain healthcare. Over 50 countries have identified medical tourism as a national industry and Malaysia has been identified as one of the popular medical travel destinations globally and in the region due to its low cost, efficient staff and medical facilities that are on par with western standards. Because of the importance of this business, Malaysia’s healthcare service providers and government agencies are required from time-to-time to examine service quality in order to keep it lucrative and increase the number of their customers. Thus, the aim of this study is to investigate the influence of healthcare service quality on medical tourists’ satisfaction that come to Malaysia as international patients. The units of analysis of this current study are individuals that attend private healthcare centers in Penang. Overall, the study findings revealed a positive relationship between healthcare service quality and overall patient satisfaction. Therefore, the government and service providers should pay more attention to healthcare service quality to be able to create reliable competitive advantages for developing the medical tourism industry compared to their regional competitors.

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