Commenced in January 2007
Frequency: Monthly
Edition: International
Paper Count: 32759
A Robust Optimization Method for Service Quality Improvement in Health Care Systems under Budget Uncertainty

Authors: H. Ashrafi, S. Ebrahimi, H. Kamalzadeh

Abstract:

With the development of business competition, it is important for healthcare providers to improve their service qualities. In order to improve service quality of a clinic, four important dimensions are defined: tangibles, responsiveness, empathy, and reliability. Moreover, there are several service stages in hospitals such as financial screening and examination. One of the most challenging limitations for improving service quality is budget which impressively affects the service quality. In this paper, we present an approach to address budget uncertainty and provide guidelines for service resource allocation. In this paper, a service quality improvement approach is proposed which can be adopted to multistage service processes to improve service quality, while controlling the costs. A multi-objective function based on the importance of each area and dimension is defined to link operational variables to service quality dimensions. The results demonstrate that our approach is not ultra-conservative and it shows the actual condition very well. Moreover, it is shown that different strategies can affect the number of employees in different stages.

Keywords: Service quality assessment, healthcare resource allocation, robust optimization, budget uncertainty.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 996

References:


[1] A. C. Soteriou and R. B. Chase, “A Robust Optimization Approach for Improving Service Quality,” M&SOM, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 264–286, Jul. 2000.
[2] R. farajifijani, S. Ahmadian, S. Ebrahimi, and E. Ghotbi, “Wind Farm Layout Optimization Problem Using Joint Probability Distribution of CVaR Analysis,” in 2019 IEEE 9th Annual Computing and Communication Workshop and Conference (CCWC), Jan. 2019, pp. 0007–0012, doi: 10.1109/CCWC.2019.8666609.
[3] R. Farajifijani, S. Ahmadian, S. Ebrahimi, and E. Ghotbi, “Application of CVaR (Conditional Value at Risk) Analysis In Wind Farm Layout Optimization,” In: Scholes Library, Oct. 2018.
[4] R. Ahmadi, “Analysis of healthcare services quality using servqual-fuzzy method,” Int. J. Econ. & Manag. Sci., vol 6, p. 485, 2017.
[5] A. Ahmadi-Javid, Z. Jalali, and K. J. Klassen, “Outpatient appointment systems in healthcare: A review of optimization studies,” European Journal of Operational Research, vol. 258, no. 1, pp. 3–34, Apr. 2017.
[6] T. S. Dagger, J. C. Sweeney, L. W. Johnson, “A Hierarchical Model of Health Service Quality: Scale Development and Investigation of an Integrated Model,” J. of Ser. Res. vol 10, no. 123, 2007.
[7] J. K. Johnson and W. A. Sollecito, McLaughlin & Kaluzny’s Continuous Quality Improvement in Health Care. Jones & Bartlett Learning, 2018.
[8] A. M. Mosadeghrad, “A conceptual framework for quality of care,” Mat. Soc. Med. vol. 24, pp. 251—61, 2012.
[9] J. M. Carman, “Consumer Perceptions of Service Quality: An Assessment of T,” Journal of Retailing; Greenwich, vol. 66, no. 1, p. 33, 1990.
[10] V. Suriya and B. Janani, “Fuzzy servqual model for health care service quality in hospitals,” Journal of Composition Theory, vol. 12, no. 5, pp. 17—21, 2019.
[11] S. Woldegebriel, D. Kitaw, C. Rafele, “Application of Fuzzy Logic for Prioritizing Service Quality Improvement in Healthcare,” Int. J. Sci. & Eng. Res. vol. 6, no. 5, p. 8, 2015.
[12] S. Ebrahimi, W. Cao, A. Liu, G. Lim, S. Lin, R. Mohan, “Assessment of Radiation-Induced Lymphopenia Risks for Esophageal Patients-Planning Study Comparing Proton and Photon Therapy,” In: Medical Physics, vol. 46, no. 6, pp. E594--E594. Willey, Hoboken, 2019.
[13] G. J. Lim, L. Kardar, S. Ebrahimi, and W. Cao, “A risk-based modeling approach for radiation therapy treatment planning under tumor shrinkage uncertainty,” European Journal of Operational Research, vol. 280, no. 1, pp. 266–278, 2020, doi: 10.1016/j.ejor.2019.06.041.
[14] S. Ahmadian, X. Tang, H. A. Malki, Z. Han, “Modelling cyber-attacks on electricity market using mathematical programming with equilibrium constraints,” In: IEEE Access, vol. 7, pp. 27376--27388, 2019.
[15] H. Kamalzadeh, A. Ahmadi, and S. Mansour, “A shape-based adaptive segmentation of time-series using particle swarm optimization,” Inf. Syst., vol. 67, pp. 1–18, 2017. doi:10.1016/j.is.2017.03.004.
[16] M. J. Z. Sakhvidi et al., “Quality Assessment in an Occupational Health Setting Using SERVQUAL Instrument,” International Journal of Occupational Hygiene, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 22–30, Mar. 2016.