Spherical Fuzzy Multicriteria Decision Making for Evaluating Healthcare Service Quality of Hospitals During the Global Pandemic

Abstract

This study identifies hospitals in Iran that have demonstrated exceptional performance in service quality during the COVID-19 pandemic based on the proposed integrated multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) process. Although the coronavirus has been eradicated in most countries, occasional outbreaks of COVID-19 variants have occurred, affecting many individuals, particularly in Iran. The pandemic caused an influx of hospital visits, with people seeking treatment for various illnesses. However, the abrupt onset of the pandemic and its global impact challenged hospitals’ ability to provide timely care, leading to a noticeable decline in service quality. Identifying the top-performing hospitals is crucial for benchmarking and enhancing healthcare quality. To assess hospital service quality, the study employed a customized SERVQUAL model, which helped identify key factors that served as criteria and subcriteria for the evaluation process. The priority weights of these factors were then obtained using the spherical fuzzy analytic hierarchy process. For each SERVQUAL criterion, the hospitals were evaluated using the spherical fuzzy weighted aggregated sum product assessment method, resulting in respective rankings of the hospitals. Finally, an integrated Borda−Copeland method was utilized to generate the aggregate evaluation ranking, a feature that serves as an important departure from the literature. The contribution of this work lies in developing an integrated approach that intends to serve as a benchmark not only for hospitals in different countries but also for those confronting similar challenges and offers guidance for seeking insights from top-performing hospitals in comparable situations.