Hospital performance evaluation for UN Sustainable Developmental Goals (SDGs): a practical multi-criteria decision making model based on root assessment method (RAM).

Hospitals as the heart of healthcare industry account for more than 40% of total healthcare costs and contribute significantly to sustainable development. Hence, the implementation of an efficient hospital performance evaluation system has the highest priority in the field. This study is the first in the literature which suggests an integrated multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) methodology comprising of best-worst method (BWM), step-wise weight assessment ratio analysis (SWARA) and root assessment method (RAM) to deal with the problem of hospital performance evaluation within the context of sustainability. First, we introduce a new subjective weighting method constructed by the convex combination of well-known methods, namely SWARA and BWM, named SWBW to improve the reliability of these methods. Next, RAM as one of the newest MCDM methods is implemented to rank the decision alternatives. A real-world case taken from literature is provided to illustrate the applicability of suggested methodology. The main feature of the suggested method is its applicability to any problem of hospital performance assessment in the context of sustainability with no limitation on the number of criteria and alternatives. SWBW-RAM can provide an adequately flexible decision-making method which is applicable to deal with highly complex real-world problems in different industries without major modifications. Through sensitivity analysis, the superiority of suggested method is showcased by demonstrating that its result is reliable and more robust than those derived from other existing methods. The implications of this study extend to policymakers and researchers who can leverage the findings of this paper to integrate the sustainability practices into the hospital management.