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In health services, how to establish good relationships with patients and enhance patient loyalty has been crucial for service managers. We explore the impact that patients' perceptions of market orientation direct effect on patient loyalty to a hospital as well as indirect effect via the mediation of relationship quality. Self-administered questionnaires were employed to collect data from outpatients. 450 questionnaires were valid. Results showed that market orientation had a direct positive impact on patient loyalty to the hospital and an indirect positive impact via the mediation of relationship quality and patient loyalty to a physician. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptual market orientation gaps between physician and patients and its impact on relationship quality and patient loyalty, and to verify the critical role of internal marketing on developing market orientation. Self-administered questionnaires were then employed to collect the data. We used a convenience sample of physicians and patients at a medical center in central Taiwan, and 90 usable questionnaires from physicians and 450 usable questionnaires from patients were returned. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses were used to validate the research hypotheses. Physicians’ perceptual market orientation had a positive influence on physician–patient relationship quality, hospital–patient relationship quality, and patient loyalty, but the perceptual market orientation gap between physicians and their patients had a direct negative impact on these constructs. Finally, internal marketing was found to have an influence on relationship quality and patient loyalty through the mediation of market orientation. In order to enhance relationship quality and patient loyalty, hospital managers should focus their efforts on improving employees’ market orientation and reducing patients’ perceptual market orientation gap. In addition, internal marketing was found to be a useful pathway in developing market orientation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which analyzed the network type exchange in the health care system in Taiwan as of June 2012. Also cited are the significant changes in the country's health care environment and system since the implementation of the National Health Insurance in 1995, as well as the problems that emerged including the distortion of medical ecology, drug price difference, and the deterioration of medical quality.

The Dow Jones Sustainability Index Chile (DJSI Chile) is made up of leading sustainability companies that are investing great effort into sustainable management. This study correlates the DJSI Chile with the financial indices (return on equity (ROE), return on assets (ROA), market value, earnings, and leverage) of companies that belong to the General Stock Price Index (IGPA) in Chile. The methodology used was quantitative, considering Chilean companies in the IGPA, including companies belonging to the DJSI Chile, applying a normality and correlation test based on the results. In conclusion, the study shows that in the results for the ROE, ROA, and leverage variables, there is no positive correlation with the DJSI Chile. However, the DJSI Chile is correlated with market value (for approximately 80% of the companies), and with earnings, there is a slightly higher correlation for the companies that belong to the DJSI Chile than for the remaining companies in the IGPA, thus if there exists a correlation between the DJSI Chile index and the variables market value and earnings, the index enables the prediction of those financial variables or predicts the finance indices (value market and earnings) of the companies that make up the DJSI Chile basing in the DJSI Chile index. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]