Topic

(Waiting) Time Flies When Youre Having Fun: An Exploratory Study on How Asian Eye Institute (Rockwell Branch) Can Enhance the Waiting Experience of Patients

A Business Research

Presented to

Professor Josefina F. Ibarle

In Partial Fulfilment

Of the Requirements for

Methods of Research (METRES)

Submitted by:

Angeles, Lara Jane

Avecilla, Julienne Marie

Bustillos, Cristalyne

Chong, Annie Michelle

Tunac, Christian Mark

METRES S63

December 21, 2013

Topic

Enhancing the Waiting Experience of Patients at Asian Eye Institutes Rockwell Branch

Title

(Waiting) Time Flies When Youre Having Fun: An Exploratory Study on How Asian Eye Institute (Rockwell Branch) Can Enhance the Waiting Experience of Patients

I. IntroductionComment by Yolanda Ibarle: Put numbers Ex. I. Introduction, II. Management Dilemma, etc.

Queues are an integral part of any business. Queues can either be a sign of a good business or a bad business depending on how the observers perceive it.

Queues are most evident in the health service industry. This study focuses on the waiting experience of the patients of the Asian Eye Institute Rockwell Clinic. The Asian Eye Institute is the result of the perseverance of two men that are highly recognized in their respective fields Mr. Oscar M. Lopez and Dr. Felipe I. Tolentino. Mr. Lopez, Chairman and CEO of the Lopez Group of Companies met & developed an enduring friendship with Dr. Tolentino when he visited Boston, one of the worlds well-known Filipino-American ophthalmologists. Comment by Yolanda Ibarle: Or Do you mean the Asian Eye Institute?Comment by Yolanda Ibarle: Do not make this your first paragraph. Introduce first what this is all about.

Asian Eye Institute It was established in 2001, which and is considered as a world-class ambulatory eye care.

The Institute put an effort to make the advance technology available in Asia Pacific, and now the Institute has served over 70,000 local and foreign patients.

Asian Eye It provides a wide specialized medical eye services, including treatment and management of cataract, glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy, macular degeneration, strabismus, and uveitis; LASIK surgery for those who want to do away with glasses and contact lenses; eye plastic surgery; pediatric ophthalmology and optometry; low vision and visual rehabilitation; optical dispensary and contact lens services. Dr. Tolentino selected well-trained Harvard Specialists to be a part of this core medical team.

The Institute now has three facilities to assist the patients. The main facility located in Rockwell Center, Makati City, houses surgical suites, examination rooms, a Diagnostic and Laser Center, a Low Vision Center, and an Optical Dispensary. The satellite clinics at TriNoma, Quezon City (established in August 2007) and Mall of Asia, Pasay City (established in September 2008) have examination rooms and a diagnostic center. In order to provide excellent service and its social responsibility ISO 9001:2008,14001:2004 and OHSAS 18001:2007 standards. The Institute was one of the first companies in the Philippines to be awarded the Investor in People (IiP) recognition by the International Quality Centre of the U.K..

II. Management Dilemma/Business Issues

Through the years, Asian Eye Institute has gained quite a number of loyal patients. In their Rockwell branch alone, there is an average of 108 patients per day.

The Rockwell Clinic was built in 2001 and houses twenty one examination rooms for patient consults, Diagnostic Centers for detecting eye diseases and monitoring treatment progress, and a Laser Center for the treatment of glaucoma and retinal diseases.

Beginning 2009, the management of Asian Eye Institute implemented a Customer Service Survey Program wherein patients are given a survey form and are asked to rate the services offered by the Clinic on a 3 point scale basis.

Upon consolidation of the results of the Customer Service Survey for 2012 and for the first half of 2013, it has been observed that an increasing number of patients do not find the waiting time acceptable. Majority of the dissatisfied patients are patients of the Rockwell Clinic.

Due to this, the management of the Rockwell Clinic became alarmed because they have the highest percentage of unsatisfied customers when it comes to acceptability of waiting.

The Rockwell Clinic accepts the most number of patients among all branches of Asian Eye Institute since it is where surgeries are conducted. It has a waiting room and a patients lounge wherein various forms of entertainment facilities such as free WiFi, different magazines and cable TV are offered for use of the patients.

Managements first step in addressing the issue of patients dissatisfaction to the acceptability of waiting time is to explore what other facilities they can offer to their patients to make the wait more bearable.

III. Management Question

How can the management of Asian Eye Institutes Rockwell Clinic improve the waiting experience of their patients?

IV. Review of Related Literature

Counteracting the negative effects of waiting is a major concern for managers in service related industries. Various studies have focused on the factors that affect the waiting perception of consumers but only a few focuses on ways on how to make waiting a pleasurable experience.

Lines are an integral part of any business. Management/owners view long lines as an advantage since it means that there are a lot of customers, however, long queues are destructive of customer satisfaction. The article The Waiting Game written by John Morris and published in the January 2013 issue of Management Today, discusses the different forms of queuing systems and how it affects the perception of the customers. It also mentions factors that make waiting in line seem longer than it seems. One factor is anxiety the feeling that things will run out before the person gets to the front of the line. Another is uncertain waits wherein the customers are not aware of how much time they need to wait. Unexplained waits are when the line is not moving and the customers are not informed what is happening and according to the article, the most important of all is unfair waits this is when other peoples lines are moving faster or when others cut in line.

Previous researchers have found that waiting time is related to the over-all satisfaction of a customer. Most consumers easily get annoyed when they have to wait for longer periods of time so longer waits are mostly associated with lower levels of customer satisfaction.

A study conducted by Charles Areni and Nicole Grantham which was published in 2009 in Advances in Consumer Research, Volume 36, focused on the effect of music being played in the waiting room on the experience of passing time. Results of the study showed that respondents hearing music they like while waiting in line reported that waiting interval passed more quickly.

Another study conducted by Winter Nie (2000) entitled Waiting: Integrating Social and Psychological Perspectives in Operations Management examined waiting time from a social and psychological perspective. According to the study, there are two ways of reducing waiting time. One way is to add more facilities and more employees and the other is to manage the perception of the customers when it comes to waiting.

The study mentioned that in theme parks wherein it takes around thirty minutes to an hour before getting into a three minute ride, there are time fillers in the form of television screens which show a short film related to the ride to make the wait seem shorter. The customers are entertained and do not notice that they have been waiting that long. The actual waiting time is not reduced but the customers perception of what constitutes a wait is changed.

Another study which was published in the International Journal of Research in Marketing (1998) on the effects of waiting on the satisfaction with the service conducted by Ad Pruyn and Al Smidts found that the adverse effects of waiting can be more effectively soothed by improving the attractiveness of the waiting environment than by shortening the objective waiting time. In the said study, two elements of the waiting environment which are the attractiveness of the waiting room and the presence of television as an explicit distracter were distinguished. Pruyn and Smidts study found that the presence of the TV did not result in the expected effect of distraction but watching it found to be dependent on the length of the wait.

Since Asian Eye Institute presently offers various sources of entertainment in their waiting area, these can be classified as distracters and this study can verify if such distracters are effective in improving the waiting experience of their patients.

Because of the business disadvantages brought about by long queues, studies have been conducted on the factors that affect a persons decision to stay in line or leave the queue. The study of Robert J. Batt and Christian Terwiesch on queue abandonment in an emergency department focused on the extent to which the visual aspects of the queue impact the abandonment decision of the patient. The study also focused in knowing what compels emergency room visitors to wait or bail. One of the recommendations of Batt and Terwieschs study is to make the waiting room more pleasant and to help the waiting customers in queue appreciate the benefits of staying as opposed to the cost of leaving.

In all the studies conducted, being informed being informed of the maximum waiting time and of the reasons behind the long queue and making the waiting room