A grey-CoCoSo-based approach for service quality evaluation of health-care units

Purpose Like all other service industries, evaluation of service quality in health-care units is a complex decision-making task involving multiple stakeholder groups with varying interest, conflicting qualitative criteria and competing health-care units. The past researchers have already attempted to solve this problem while integrating different uncertainty models with various multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) tools. This paper aims to propose application of an MCDM method for evaluating service quality of health-care units in uncertain environment. Design/methodology/approach This paper presents application of an integrated approach combining grey numbers with combined compromise solution (G-CoCoSo) method for appraising service quality of six Urban Primary Health Centers (UPHCs) in Kolkata, India, based on the opinions of three different stakeholder groups (health-care service recipients, medical officers and health-care administrators) against six subjective criteria (tangibles, responsiveness, service, assurance, empathy and hygiene). A sensitivity analysis is also performed to investigate the effect of varying values of λ on the ranking performance of G-CoCoSo method. Findings Based on the collective judgments of the three stakeholder groups expressed in grey numbers, “tangibles” is identified as the most important criterion, followed by “responsiveness”. On the other hand, “assurance” criterion has the least importance. The G-CoCoSo method singles out H3 as the best UPHC, followed by H1. On the contrary, H5 appears as the worst performing UPHC. The results of sensitivity analysis prove that this integrated method is insensitive to changing values of λ. Similarly, a comparative study against other grey integrated state-of-the-art MCDM methods validates its solution accuracy. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, G-CoCoSo is used for the first time in this paper to solve a health-care service quality evaluation problem demonstrating satisfactory results. It would assist both the health-care professionals and patients in identifying the relative strengths and weaknesses of each of the UPHCs under consideration.