2 qualitative data collections Advancing Healthcare Research through the Transformative Service Collaborative: Four Projects Steven Rayburn, Linda Nasr, Sidney Anderson, and Ray Fisk Department of Marketing, College of Business, Texas State University Project Descriptions   A health care research agenda related to the emerging area of Transformative Service Research, which focuses on how services impact consumer well-being. The following projects examine how the interaction between service providers (e.g., hospitals, universities) and consumers (e.g., students, immigrants, patients) transforms both the provision of service and the lives of consumers. NICU: An exploration of the experiences of Premie Parents in the NICU to inform appropriate service design in this highly stressful healthcare context In the NICU there is a history of keeping parents distanced from babies and their care despite evidence of the benefits (to child and parents) of having parents involved in a service co-creation experience – having them take an active role in the care of their baby (Galarza-Winton et al., 2013). Medical professionals become gatekeepers between parents and babies; emotionally and physically, despite the fact that parental touch and involvement is not only beneficial but also vital to successful NICU treatment (Galarza- Winston. 2013).   Understanding this research offers guidance about how to manage interactions between consumers and providers in a complex and critical service context. Immigrant Healthcare Utilization: An exploration of immigrant consumer health service expectation and perceptions to inform service design to promote increased immigrant utilization Immigrant consumers engage in healthcare services less frequently and exhibit more preventable health issues than native consumers. . Findings herein suggest that culturally appropriate service design and marketing can enhance service utilization by the target population. The Impact of Composite Quality on Patient Well-Being: A General Systems Theory Perspective Prior research treats conformance quality, experiential quality, and environmental quality as orthogonal concepts. This research conceptualizes hospital quality as a composite of the aforementioned quality dimensions. RQ: How does composite quality impact patient well-being? Data & Method: Three years of secondary data from two sources were utilized (n=2,781). OLS regression was employed to test the hypotheses. Research Findings: Synergies exist among conformance, experiential, and environmental quality as shown by composite quality’s negative impact on readmissions and positive impact on patient experience.   Implications: Hospital administrators’ efforts should be focused on consolidating all three quality dimensions. Moreover, they should emulate high reliability organizations’ (e.g., civil aviation, nuclear power) to ensure hospitals can reliably deal with risk and complexity while demonstrating high levels of safety. Medical Servic Underexplored Highly important Highly stressful Extreme dependency on the part of consumers (patients) and almost absolute power on the part of service providers (medical specialists). Medical Services Food Insecurity: An exploration of food-insecurity breadth and depth at Texas State University coupled with a participant developed solution program   In this research, we address college student food access; a major overlooked problem in the education service system. Preliminary data suggest that students at Texas State experience food insecurity at a higher rate than average. This research develops an understanding of key variables for the design and marketing of healthcare services for this vulnerable consumer group. Data Purposeful sampling 277 respondents ANOVA Models Mean Score Comparisons 2 qualitative data collections Conceptual Model Survey Food Insecurity 21% of students in USA Worse for minority and low-income students 1 in 5 College students Research Findings: Findings reinforce the importance and impact of power imbalances in this service experience for parents of premature babies. Parental feelings of powerlessness, medical staff encouragement, and even prior understanding of their efficacy in caring for their child were reported to work against and/or for parental involvement in care. At the center of all conversations was the importance of whether the “hospital” cared more about the baby’s immediate survival or its long-term quality of life. Findings from the survey data reinforce and support interpretation of the qualitative data. Differences based on both being an immigrant as well as immigrants’ acculturation levels are identified. Differences between immigrant acculturation levels based on dimensions of service quality are also illuminated Research Findings: Acculturation-based research is insightful. Immigrants’ service responses do not mirror those of native respondents in healthcare services. Acculturation levels highlights key nuances within immigrant populations that have significant implications for service designers and providers. Grounded Theory Mixed Methods to build the problem framework and co-create appropriate solutions 1. Quantitatively Who is hungry? When in the university experience does this occur? What is the breadth of the problem 2. Qualitatively Offer a deep-dive into the problem through which contributing factors to food insecurity can be identified and understood leading to more targeted and effective solution development.