The South African private healthcare industry has grown since the advent of afull democracy in South Africa (UNDP, 2007) and research into the endconsumer choice preferences for private hospital facilities has yielded usefulinsights.This study looks at the end consumer choice preferences of the privatehospital industry in South Africa. It is designed to aid private hospital facilitymanagers with regards to decision making around strategic, marketing andexpansionary decisions. Operational factors were intentionally excluded fromthis study, being outside the scope of the research.The research problem explores both tangible and intangible attributes thatcontribute to consumer decision making in those using purely private hospitalfacilities, on a walk-in, non-emergency basis. These attributes were identifiedfrom the literature review and comprised facility quality, location, price, accessfrom the tangible side; and staff competence, staff attitude and brandrecognition from an intangible perspective.Data was collected by means of a snowball, online questionnaire, which wasdesigned on the basis of choice-based conjoint analysis. There were a total of132 respondents of which 93 had valid responses. The questionnaire was firstsubjected to a qualitative pilot phase in which personal interviews wereconducted by the researcher in order to screen and validate the questionnaire.Respondent’s demographics were widespread across most demographicgroups recorded. Due to limited responses from certain demographic groups,however, this research has limited applicability for the lower income brackets,the elderly and those without medical insurance cover. Data was thenanalysed using applicable software, interpreted and placed into context.Key findings from this research are that tangible and intangible attributesaccount for an almost equal proportion of the decision making criteria, withiiistaff competence, facility quality and location having the highest importancescores overall. Lowest importance scores for decision making attributes werefor staff attitude and access, with price and brand ranking in the middle.Different demographic groups had statistically significant differences inattribute importances, namely across age groups with regards to staffcompetency, brand and price; across gender groups with regards to staffcompetency facilities and price; income brackets across staff competency,location and brand; and finally across those with dependants versus thosewithout across staff competency and brand. This means that private hospitalfacility managers may have to tailor their strategic, marketing andexpansionary plans according to their target markets.The underlying key finding that emerged from this research study was that,private hospital facility manager’s top priority should be making sure that theend consumer has absolute confidence in the hospital staff, followed byhaving high quality facilities and assuring location is taken into account whenformulating strategic, marketing and expansionary strategies. If resources arelimited they should be first channelled in these areas, although the otherattributes examined in this research study do play a role and may bedifferentiating factors should all else be equal.
