Eureka! Institutional Repository

Globalization combined with the growing need for development have led states, organizations, but also the citizens to search quality assurance in all sectors. Especially in the field of Health, the attention to quality assurance is important. The establishment of health systems has been a milestone in the history of health services, and has contributedsignificantly to quality improvement and has led to the effort of new policies that are more in line with Total Quality Management. The desire to adopt the best quality arises from the need to meet the expectations of health users. Both management and employees seem to be working harder and harder to meet these expectations. In order to control the satisfaction, it is necessary to measure it, which is the main tool for evaluating the quality provided. Knowledge of patients' perceptions helps to record their requests, to assess the current situation and to highlight the main satisfaction problems that need improvement. Based on all the above and with the desire to find the level of quality in a regional private health unit in Greece this research was proceeded. The primary goal is to evaluate the health services provided in comparison with the expected services of the patients. In addition, it is checked whether the expected quality is influenced by other factors such as age and educational level. The search was based on the SERVQUAL questionnaire model adapted to the health sector was created and was based on five dimensions – Tangibility, Assurance, Empathy, Responsiveness, Reliability-. It was distributed to women, pregnant and nonpregnant, who were provided with health services by the private Obstetrics and Gynecology clinic Elefto, in Giannitsa at the county of Pella. In total, 250 questionnaires were distributed, of which 206 were considered valid and used in the research. It was found that there is about a small gap between the expected and perceived quality. A small degree of low gap was observed in all five dimensions, with the first being tangibles, the second being reliability, the third being empathy, the fourth being responsiveness and the last being assurance. In addition, according to the findings, the quality gap seems to be influenced by demographics such as age, educational level, occupation and for other causes such as the reason for visit, contrary to satisfaction are not affected by factors of marital status and frequency of visits. At the end, despite the existence of a small general gap, the patients' satisfaction is considered great. The appearance of this gap can be evaluated by the management of the clinic, in order to further improve the quality