Improving Experiential Quality in Complex Service Environments: A Multi-level Analysis

Hospitals today are posed with many requirements arising from government regulations and financial incentives to improve patient experiential quality. This study examines effects of two types of hospital complexity (i.e., service variety and case mix) on patient experiential quality. The study also investigates how information technology (IT), namely clinical IT and administrative IT, helps mitigate effects of hospital complexity. Using several secondary data sources, we assemble a multi-level dataset in which patient data are nested within hospitals. The dataset allows us to examine both hospital- and patient-level factors that may affect patient experiential quality. Our findings indicate service variety and case mix are both negatively associated with patient experiential quality. We also observe that administrative IT mitigates negative effects of both types of complexity, whereas clinical IT mitigates neither type of complexity. Finally, we find patient-level factors (e.g., age, gender, ethnicity, educational attainment, health status, and patient types) are strongly associated with experiential quality after accounting for effects of hospital-level factors. Post-hoc analyses demonstrate nuanced relationships between hospital complexity, IT, and individual dimensions of experiential quality.