Computational Intelligence and Soft Computing Applications in Healthcare Management Science

Abstract

One of the major concerns of the healthcare industry throughout the world is to provide better hospital service quality. Management and delivery of hospital healthcare services are achieved in a competitive environment in Turkey. For this reason, to make better decisions, the services provided by the public and private hospitals should be monitored and evaluated according to the viewpoint of medical stakeholders. This chapter presents a cause-and-effect, decision-making model in evaluating hospital service quality criteria. Since the decision-making process involves the vagueness of human judgments, a combination of fuzzy sets and decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) is used. Results of the study demonstrate that medical equipment level of the hospital, the attitude of nurses and medical staff to patients, pharmacists' advice on medicine preservation, medical staff with professional abilities, outpatient waiting time for medical treatment, and number and quality of the bathrooms available have more impact on the entire hospital service quality. In conclusion, the proposed approach will contribute to better providing of healthcare services at a higher quality level.