DEMATEL-modified ANP to evaluate internal hospital supply chain performance

Abstract

© 2016 Elsevier Ltd Previous measurement of hospital supply chain performance independently measure the performance groups of patient safety and hospital supply chain efficiency which include clinical care and supporting process efficiency. In fact, these three performance groups relate to one another. The interdependencies among performance groups should be investigated. Moreover, it is necessary to examine which performance aspects included in each group is the most important for improvement. The importance of performance aspects can be determined by designated weights. The weights of performance aspects can help manager select which aspect needs improvement. The interdependencies inform hospital executives how to improve performance properly. This study employs DEMATEL-modified ANP to investigate the relationships among performance groups, and calculate weights for performance aspects. DEMATEL is used to examine the causal relationships among performance groups and among performance aspects within each group. The causal relationships are then used to determine weights of performance aspects applying modified ANP. The result of the study shows that the most important aspects of hospital supply chain performance are completeness of treatment, no delay in treatment and clinical care process time. The causal relationships from DEMATEL can also inform the hospital executives that improving no delay in treatment performance can be achieved by improving itself, while to ease an improvement in completeness of treatment and clinical care process time must consider improving other performance aspects relating to them as well.