Impact of Employees' Empowerment on Perceived Quality of Service Delivery in the Tertiary Health Institutions

Introduction

The tertiary healthcare institution, being the most sought-after acute care service providers, requires quality assurance in order to ensure that duties of care provided by health workers are safe, secured and not a detriment to the quality of life of people in a country (Al-Shdaifat, 2015; Agarwal & Singh, 2016). According to Haq and Ashraf (2015) and Yousef and Yousef (2017), the state of health of people in a country significantly determines the rate of economic growth and development. As the saying goes “Health is Wealth”, hence, improving quality of life of people through quality healthcare activities enhances their wellbeing and social wellness in contributing actively in business activities that promote national economic growth and development (Kumar, Bera & Chakraborty, 2018). However, the studies conducted by Ikorok, Akapbio and Ogunjimi (2012), Yaya, Asunmo, Abolarinwa and Onyenekwe (2015) and Ogbeide and Ejechi (2016) have revealed that employees of health organizations have failed in sustaining the standard of quality in service delivery. This unfortunate approach of the Nigeria health workers in sustaining the standard of quality in the sector has led to series of observed medical injuries, technical and man errors, and high morbidity and mortality rates in the country.

As a central channel to national growth, healthcare management is not limited to providing adequate treatment for care needs but also include quality assurance of continuous safety and effectiveness of service quality delivery processes in the sector (Ikorok et al., 2012). However, the Nigerian healthcare sector has faced diverse challenges limiting its ability in meeting over 200 million population healthcare needs, thereby, frustrating quality achievement of improved performance in the sector (Adeoti, 2011; Gbadeyan et al., 2017). Notably, insensitivity of hospital management in empowering healthcare workers with required training, quality healthcare facilities and motivation suitable in improving their performances is one major impediment restraining quality of service delivery in the sector (Ikorok et al., 2012). As revealed by Ikorok et al. (2012), Ogbeide and Ejechi (2016), and Gbadeyan et al. (2017), inability of the healthcare service providers to access high quality healthcare resources in delivering their expected duty of care has undeniably increased morbidity and mortality rate in the Nigeria health sector. In the light of these challenges, there is a need to weigh the perceived quality of service delivery of the Nigerian healthcare employees in order to identify and understand factors responsible for poor quality performance in the sector at large. Notably, this is necessary as practitioners in the health sector are the mainstream of service quality delivery, and also, play the intermediary role between healthcare organizations and service users. Therefore, the specific objectives of this chapter are to; (i) evaluate the significant impact of employees’ empowerment on perceived quality of service delivery in the tertiary health institution (ii) identify critical elements of quality of service delivery and their effects on quality assurance and performance of Nigerian healthcare workers, and (iii) develop constructive framework for workable solution in sustaining future relevance of quality assurance in the Nigerian healthcare sector. Notably, these identified objectives will be achieved through empirical qualitative literature review.