Evaluating and prioritizing hospital service quality

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Management
• Operations Research
• Quality Improvement

Background:

• Hospital evaluations drive competition among healthcare providers.
• Assessing hospital service quality is crucial for organizational growth and efficient resource management.
• Existing evaluation methods may not fully capture the complexities of healthcare service quality.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify and evaluate key criteria affecting hospital service quality.
• To apply a novel hybrid multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approach for hospital ranking.
• To provide a framework for hospital managers to enhance organizational performance.

Main Methods:

• Identification of four primary criteria: environment, responsiveness, equipment/facilities, and professional capability.
• Application of four hybrid MCDM methods: modified digital logic-TODIM, AHP-TODIM, AHP-EWR, and modified digital logic-EWR.
• Aggregation of results using the Copeland method for final hospital ranking.

Main Results:

• Professional capability was identified as the most significant criterion influencing hospital service quality.
• The hybrid MCDM approach, integrated by the Copeland method, successfully ranked four Iranian public hospitals.
• The evaluation highlighted specific strengths and weaknesses across the assessed hospitals.

Conclusions:

• The proposed criteria and their weighting offer valuable insights for hospital managers.
• This framework supports comprehensive organizational development and optimized resource utilization.
• The study introduces a novel hybrid MCDM methodology for robust hospital quality assessment and ranking.