A joint weighting and modified weighted aggregated sum product assessment‐based methodology for the measurement of patient satisfaction: Evidence from Indian healthcare

Abstract

In recent times, the increasing healthcare spending due to the rising health awareness signifies the importance of identifying the appropriate factors that influence patient satisfaction, weight assignment to these factors, and measurement of patient satisfaction becomes important. However, devising a robust objective weighting method for weight assignment of the factors and an analytical method for determining patient satisfaction scores has not been paid enough attention. Motivated by these issues, this work focuses on devising a robust objective weighting method for weight assignment of the factors that influence patient satisfaction, an analytical method for determining patient satisfaction, and real‐life implementation. We first propose a joint weighting methodology to allocate the weights to the factors by integrating the weights determined by different objective weighting methods, namely, mean weight, SD, entropy, criteria importance through intercriteria correlation, and preference selection index‐based approaches. Next, using the weights of these factors, we design a modified weighted aggregated sum product assessment method to determine a single patient satisfaction score by integrating the scores obtained from the weighted sum model and the weighted product model. The proposed methodology is applied to a real‐world dataset provided by a large healthcare provider and diagnostic clinic in Kolkata, India, to exhibit the real‐life implementation. The theoretical insights obtained through non‐parametric tests highlight the significant difference between joint weighting‐based and single weighting‐based methods. The context‐specific insights signify that the patients suffering from arthritis and hyperlipidaemia exhibit lower satisfaction. Also, the patients suffering from dengue express lower satisfaction than the patients suffering from malaria. Additionally, the healthcare provider should focus on improving the service quality of the departments such as ophthalmology, ENT, and dietician.

Screening of sealing materials for PEM fuel cell applications based on weight factor method

“…The weight factor method, which is applies to our daily lives, health care, computer science, project development, investigation research, and other fields, can help researchers or decision‐makers to make more reasonable decisions 38–40 . The selection of weight factors and its weights allocation are the keys to make the result reasonable and valuable.…”

Multiple criteria decision making in health and medicine

“…In Singh et al (2022), the authors propose a robust objective weighting method for assignment of the factors that influence patient satisfaction. They formulate a new methodology to allocate the weights to the factors by integrating the weights determined by different objectives and preference selection index‐based approaches.…”

“…In Singh et al (2022), the authors propose a robust objective weighting method for assignment of the factors that influence patient satisfaction.…”