For her PhD thesis, Lecturer in Marketing at UQ’s Business School Dr Tracey Dagger singled out the most important service aspects of receiving treatment at heamatology and oncology clinics for cancer patients.
Oncology care has emerged as a growing area of healthcare specialisation and advancement.
Cancer is the second-most common cause of death in the developed world and more than half of all patients diagnosed with cancer receive chemotherapy treatment at haematology and oncology clinics.
“Cancer is a major health issue for Australians and has been identified as a national priority area by the Australian government,” Dr Dagger said.
“With around 50 percent of those diagnosed with cancer now expected to survive for longer than five years, there are a growing number of patients living with the long-term effects of this disease.”
Estimates suggest that as much as 80–90 percent of future cancer treatment will be delivered in an outpatient setting. Despite this, there has been little research on service evaluation within this setting, according to Dr Dagger.
Dr Dagger’s study, involving more than 1100 cancer patients at five clinics in both Western Australia and Queensland, is believed to be the first of its kind in Australia.
She said she planned to develop a research program over the next three years to further investigate areas uncovered by her thesis.
Her study would benefit the quality of lives of people with cancer, as well as improve business performance at oncology clinics, she said.
A major outcome of the research was that cancer patients’ perceptions of the overall service quality of clinics were based on four key aspects of the services received – interpersonal quality, technical quality, physical environment quality, and supplementary service quality.
“Of these, perceptions of the technical quality of the service provider had the greatest impact on service quality perceptions, followed by supplementary service quality, interpersonal quality, and physical environment quality,” Dr Dagger said.
Technical quality concerns what is accomplished as a result of the service process and the provider’s competence, knowledge, and skill at achieving desired outcomes.
To improve the technical qualities of clinics, Dr Dagger said staff should actively encourage and educate customers; and emphasise expertise and professionalism in their marketing communications.
“Customers should be provided with information on staff qualifications, training, skill levels, and professional development activities. The clinic’s quality, accreditation and awards should be displayed and emphasised and ‘back room’ administration/tasks should not be visible to patients,” Dr Dagger said.
As part of the second phase of her study, Dr Dagger found service quality and customer satisfaction both influenced customer behavioural intentions such as repeat visits, recommending the clinic, saying positive things about the clinic to family and friends, and even following medical advice given by the clinic.
This suggests that oncology service providers need to ensure they provide a high level of service quality and satisfaction if they are to positively influence the behavioural intentions of their patients. They can do this through improving aspects of their interpersonal quality, technical quality, supplementary service quality and physical environment quality.
“Customer satisfaction was found to be the primary driver of customers’ quality-of-life perceptions. This suggested that providers of oncolocy services had the ability to influence quality-of-life for cancer patients,” Dr Dagger said.
“Given that Government reports have recommended that future research in the area of cancer be directed not only at reducing the mortality and morbidity associated with the disease and its treatment but to maintaining the quality of life for patients and their families this is an important new finding.”
The research contained in Dr Dagger’s PhD thesis was rated by both her international examiners as being among the top five percent of theses internationally in its field.
Both examiners nominated the thesis for an award of distinction and it received the Best Paper Award from more than 330 submitted papers at the 2003 Australia and New Zealand Marketing Academy Conference.
Media contacts: Dr Dagger (telephone: 07 3365 7146, mobile 0412 434 011 or email: t.dagger@business.uq.edu.au) or Shirley Glaister at UQ Communications (telephone: 07 3365 1120, email: s.glaister@uq.edu.au).
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