Physician Selection with a Neutrosophic Multi-criteria Decision Making Method

Abstract

In this study, it is done that the evaluation of neurology clinics of two hospitals under the Ministry of Health and their physicians, considering patient preferences. While effective service policies and procedures of hospitals increase customer satisfaction, the performance of physicians ensures preferability. Therefore, measuring satisfaction and performance is crucial for management. However, measurement includes many challenges in connection with many factors and uncertainty on these factors. Thus, neutrosophic multi-criteria decision-making methods have been particularly chosen to overcome these challenges in this study. The related literature on the subject shows that easy access, cleaning and comfort, technological infrastructure, and equipment, total service time, physicians’ communication skills, recognition of physicians, treatment effectiveness, treatment rate, academic career are the main criteria. The values of weights for these criteria and the physicians ranking based on the values of those weights were found by using the Neutrosophic Analytical Hierarchy Process (N-AHP). It has been validated that the ranking is fitting to patient preferences in the Central Physicians Appointment System. As a result, the recommended method can be effectively used in selecting physicians. © 2021, The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.