Towards Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process Model for Performance Evaluation of Healthcare Sector Services

Abstract

All service providers strive to attain superior service quality (SQ), since the demand for provision of high quality customer focused services is constantly rising. In the healthcare sector, it becomes of utmost importance to understand consumer expectations and their needs to effectively remain competitive in the market. Increase in the per capita income of clients has made them increase their aspiration level to demand enhanced quality services. Currently, hospitals in Nairobi City County (NCC) in Kenya, do not offer services to patients based on their aspirations and in the process, they lose clients. There is need for hospital administrators to determine how patients perceive healthcare quality service, and employ techniques that match their expectations. This is probable by using patients to evaluate their services based on identified criteria. Human evaluations are normally imprecise thus uncertainty aspects should be integrated in the evaluation process. Techniques employed should be able to handle the subjective nature of human evaluators. Fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) model has been designed to analyze the service quality in the healthcare sector based on SERVQUAL dimensions. The model is capable of handling the uncertainty and vagueness involved in the mapping of one’s preference to an exact number or ratio. It has been used to measure the SQ of four hospitals from NCC by computing the priority of each of the dimensions of healthcare SQ attributes. The priority is then used for ranking the best hospital from the patient’s perspective. Hospital managers can use the results of this assessment as a basis of employing strategies that would ensure they provide quality services to patients.