Impact of Service Innovation and its Quality on Patients' Satisfaction and Loyalty during the Covid-19 Pandemic

Introduction: In today's societies, the health sector is growing rapidly, and hospitals, as institutions that provide health and survival of the society and provide health services, have experienced many changes over time.  People have understood that health is a valuable service for their lives, especially when the spread of new diseases threatens the life and health of society. Therefore, the main goal of this research was to investigate the relationship between innovation and service quality on customer satisfaction and loyalty during the Covid-19 pandemic. Methods: The present research has focused on the impact of service innovation and its quality on patients' satisfaction and loyalty during the Covid-19 pandemic in Yazd Shahid Sadoughi Hospital. The statistical population of the present study was the patients admitted to Shahid Sadoughi Hospital in Yazd, Iran. Because the size of the population was uncertain, Cochran's formula was used to calculate the number of samples, which resulted in 384 people. SPSS and Smart PLS3 software were also used for data analysis. Results: Among the patients with corona virus, service innovation had a positive and significant effect on the patient satisfaction and 0.11 (p<0.05) on loyalty, respectively. Likewise, service quality has affected the satisfaction and loyalty of the patients by 0.77 and 0.45 with (P<0.05); the effect of the patient satisfaction on loyalty was positive and significant at the rate of 0.41 (P<0.05). Conclusion: The results have shown that the relationship between service innovation and its quality had a positive and significant effect on patients' satisfaction and loyalty during the Covid-19 pandemic. The reason is that if the quality of the services provided is in accordance with the expectations of the patients, it will cause the satisfaction of the patients and will lead to their loyalty.