Hospital service quality evaluation: an integrated model based on Pythagorean fuzzy AHP and fuzzy TOPSIS

Abstract

Providing better hospital service quality is one of the major concerns of healthcare industry in the world. Since health services in Turkey are provided in a very competitive environment, for making a better choice, the services delivered by the public and private hospitals should be evaluated according to the viewpoint of stakeholders in terms of satisfaction. In this study, a model proposal is presented based on the concept of Pythagorean fuzzy analytic hierarchy process and Pythagorean fuzzy technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution method to provide an accurate decision-making process for evaluating the hospital service quality. We study under fuzzy environment to reduce uncertainty and vagueness, and use linguistic variables parameterized by Pythagorean fuzzy numbers. The proposed approach is separated from others with the integration of the methods in a way providing a systematic fuzzy decision-making process. A case study including 32 service quality criteria and two public and one private hospitals in Turkey assessed by 32 evaluators by medical staff, hospital executives, auxiliaries, and patients is performed to demonstrate the applicability and validity of the proposed approach. On conclusion, integrated model produces reliable and suggestive outcomes better representing the vagueness of decision-making process.