Marketing Research Project - Customer Satisfaction in Qatar Hospitals

This group project focuses on a hands-on marketing research experience, applying concepts learned in the course to assess patient satisfaction in Qatar hospitals. The project requires students to conduct a questionnaire-based survey in assigned hospitals, collecting data on demographics, medical treatments, service providers, communication, accommodation, catering, recreation, value for money, and location. Students will analyze the data using SPSS, performing descriptive analysis. The project culminates in a comprehensive research report, including an introduction, research design, results with tables and graphs, conclusions with realistic recommendations for service quality improvements, and appendices. The report, approximately 3000 words, must be submitted by Week 14 and aims to provide insights into customer (patient) views of services in Qatar hospitals, contributing to the development of consumer-driven service strategies.

Marketing Research - Group Project - Fall 2016
Introduction
The main aim of this group project is to have a hands-on experience of marketing
research. The project will give you the opportunity to apply the marketing research
concepts covered in the course. The key purpose of the research project is to:
- Work through the Marketing Research (MR) Process
- Apply MR concepts to specific marketing issue
- Gain experience in data analysis using SPSS.
- Write a marketing research report
- Do a marketing research presentation
Project Description
On 3rd April 2011, under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad
Al-Thani, Qatar’s National Health Strategy (QNHS) was officially launched. This five
year healthcare plan specifically stressed on provision of patient-centered world class
healthcare services to meet the existing and future needs of the consumers.
Hence the key question that needs to be clearly addressed is the customer (patient)
view of services in hospitals in Qatar. This important and fundamental question
should bring out a number of key service considerations and issues which should be
tackled before embarking on implementation of consumer driven service strategy in
hospitals.
As a researcher you will focus on in-patients (i.e. patients who stay in a hospital for
more than 1 day). The prime project objective will be to evaluate the satisfaction
status of a patient who is receiving healthcare services in a hospitals. Consequently
the research project will help develop satisfaction profile of a customer (patient) that
is reflective of whether or not customer’s needs and expectations are being met.
The research project will cover the following strategically important areas
related to Customer (patient) care:
1. Demographics (identify different types of patients)
2. Different types of medical treatments
3. Assessment of service providers performance
4. Quality and extent of communication between service providers and patients
5. Assessment of patient accommodation
6. Assessment of catering quality
7. Assessment of recreation and entertainment
8. Value for money evaluation
9. Location assessment
A questionnaire based survey should be conducted to collect the data. Data will be
gathered from hospitals in Qatar. Each group will be assigned one of the following
hospitals:
-Al-Khor General Hospital
-Rumaillah Hospital
-Hammad Hospital
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-Al-Ahli Hospital
-Al-Emadi Hospital
-American Hospital
-Doha Clinic Hospital
-Aspetor Hotel
A minimum of 20-40 questionnaires should be completed. You will be required to use
SPSS to analyse the collected data. You will be expected to perform, at the minimum,
descriptive analysis which must include mean/frequency analyses and standard
deviation.
Research report
The research report should include the following parts:
A. Introduction
Title page: Title of the project, names of group members and the course title.
Table of contents: Sections of the report with page numbers.
Executive summary: One page briefly describing the study. The summary should
include key objectives, research design used, major findings, conclusions and
recommendations.
Background of the project that familiarizes the reader to the issues under investigation
Research questions: questions covered in the research
B. Research design
(i) Discuss the logic behind your choice of data collection medium (e.g. face-to-face,
phone, Internet etc) and the research instrument used (e.g. questionnaire, in-depth
interview, observation, etc).
(ii) Describe the sample selection method, sample size and response rate.
(iii) Explain how and where the data collection took place.
(iv) Describe the suitability of the techniques that were used to analyze the data.
C. Results
This section should include the analysis, interpretation and discussion of the results.
Tables, graphs, charts should be used to present the results.
D. Conclusions and recommendations
By carefully studying the results, present your recommendations for service quality
improvements. Your recommendations must be realistic and practical. Where
appropriate, you should also specify the time, budget and human resources that may
be needed to implement the suggested recommendation.
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E. Appendices
This section may include copies of the filled questionnaires, printouts of statistical
analysis, references, previous reports etc.
Finally, the research report should be approximately 3000 words. It should be
typewritten and double spaced.
The deadline for handing in the research report is Week 14. No deadline
extensions will be allowed.
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