Service excellence: Strategies for healthcare and nursing services

In the digital era, healthcare industry is evolved under conditions of intense competition in approaching health prevention, protection, and promotion. Healthcare organization especially nursing organization should adapt strategic planning of excellence (1) promotion and prevention excellence; (2) service excellence; (3) people excellence; and (4) governance excellence. Therefore, healthcare providers and nurses are challenged to always ensure better patient experience, winning patients’ satisfaction, and loyalty and remain competitive advantages.

Achieving service excellence is a potential factor for gaining competitive advantages in today's healthcare industry. Sustained competitive advantage is the direct result of the value differential which a marked difference in clinical quality, service quality or price between other hospital services. As an executive, the job is to set a service strategy and enable staff to both innovate and continuously improve services. To achieve a service excellence, the healthcare and nursing organizations should start with components as followings; (1) creating and sustaining a culture of service excellence focusing on the six principles of service excellence, (2) leadership function and leadership roles for achieving service excellence, (3) strategies for achieving service excellence in healthcare with service-staff-system strategy, and (4) implementation of healthcare and nursing service strategies

In conclusion, patients nowadays are systematically becoming aware of the diversity of their choices, being increasingly involved in making better healthcare choices, and, so, more and more innovative services are introduced. The all components of service product, service setting and service delivery system is not complete without patients. Achieving service excellence should be started with patient focus and everything ends with the patient as well.