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Service quality benchmarking via a novel approach based on fuzzy ELECTRE III and IPA: an empirical case involving the Italian public healthcare context

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  • Concetta Manuela La Fata

    (Università degli Studi di Palermo)

  • Toni Lupo

    (Università degli Studi di Palermo)

  • Tommaso Piazza

    (Università Ca’ Foscari)

Abstract

A novel fuzzy-based approach which combines ELECTRE III along with the Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA) is proposed in the present work to comparatively evaluate the service quality in the public healthcare context. Specifically, ELECTRE III is firstly considered to compare the service performance of examined hospitals in a noncompensatory manner. Afterwards, IPA is employed to support the service quality management to point out improvement needs and their priorities. The proposed approach also incorporates features of the Fuzzy Set Theory so as to address the possible uncertainty, subjectivity and vagueness of involved experts in evaluating the service quality. The model is applied to five major Sicilian public hospitals, and strengths and criticalities of the delivered service are finally highlighted and discussed. Although several approaches combining multi-criteria methods have already been proposed in the literature to evaluate the service performance in the healthcare field, to the best of the authors’ knowledge the present work represents the first attempt at comparing service performance of alternatives in a noncompensatory manner in the investigated context.

Suggested Citation

  • Concetta Manuela La Fata & Toni Lupo & Tommaso Piazza, 2019. "Service quality benchmarking via a novel approach based on fuzzy ELECTRE III and IPA: an empirical case involving the Italian public healthcare context," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 22(1), pages 106-120, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:hcarem:v:22:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1007_s10729-017-9424-4
    DOI: 10.1007/s10729-017-9424-4
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    Cited by:

    1. Karasan, Ali & Erdogan, Melike & Cinar, Melih, 2022. "Healthcare service quality evaluation: An integrated decision-making methodology and a case study," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 82(PA).
    2. Sergio Domínguez & María Carmen Carnero, 2020. "Fuzzy Multicriteria Modelling of Decision Making in the Renewal of Healthcare Technologies," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 8(6), pages 1-46, June.
    3. Mohammed Al Awadh, 2022. "Utilizing Multi-Criteria Decision Making to Evaluate the Quality of Healthcare Services," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-21, October.

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