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A Novel Interval-Valued Pythagorean Fuzzy Decision Support Framework for Evaluating Hospital Service Quality
Pub. online: 21 October 2026      Type: Research Article      Open accessOpen Access
Received
1 February 2026
Accepted
1 October 2026
Published
21 October 2026

Abstract

This study proposes an integrated decision support framework for evaluating hospital service quality under uncertainty using Interval-Valued Pythagorean Fuzzy (IVPF) information. It combines an improved entropy measure for expert weighting, WENSLO-RANCOM method for criteria weighting, and an IVPF extension of CRADIS method for hospital ranking. The framework is applied to five hospitals in Patna, India, using four experts and eighteen criteria. Public transport, ambulance services, and medication expertise emerge as the most important factors. Hospital-2 ranks first overall. Sensitivity and comparative analyses confirm the robustness of the results, while the framework also supports resource allocation and service improvement planning.

Supplementary material

 Supplementary Material
Tables S1–S3 and detailed comparative analysis are included in Supplementary file.

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Biographies

Almuflih Ali Saeed
asalmuflih@kku.edu.sa

A. Almuflih is an associate professor in industrial engineering at King Khalid University. His research interests lie in the intersection of operations management and data analytics, in particular, as applied to healthcare delivery system framework, supply chain engineering and lean concepts. He completed his PhD in the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management System at University of Central Florida (UCF) in 2020. He also completed a MS degree in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at Northeastern University (NEU) in 2016 and BS at KKU in 2011.

Al Fatais Abdullah Mohammed
alftas@kku.edu.sa

A. Al Fatais is an assistant professor in the Industrial Engineering Department at King Khalid University (KKU). He received his BS in industrial engineering from KKU, and MS in engineering management and leadership from Santa Clara University (SCU). In addition, Dr. Al Fatais received his PhD in industrial engineering from UCF. His research interests include advanced manufacturing technologies, artificial intelligence, and operation management.

Mishra Arunodaya Raj
arunodayaraj.mishra@ostimteknik.edu.tr

A.R. Mishra received his PhD in mathematics and he is an assistant professor in Department of Mathematics, Government Vivekanand College Maihar, Madhya Pradesh, India. His main research interests are fuzzy sets theory, decision theory, multi-criteria decision making, intuitionistic fuzzy sets, orthopair fuzzy sets, neutrosophic fuzzy sets, picture fuzzy sets, hesitant fuzzy sets, rough sets information measures, aggregation operators, soft computing models and others. He has published more than 200 peer-reviewed papers, many in high-quality international journals. According to Stanford University, he is among world’s 2% scientists in the field of Artificial Intelligence since 2021.

Tirkolaee Erfan Babaee
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1664-9210
erfan.babaee@istinye.edu.tr

E.B. Tirkolaee obtained a BSc (2012) and an MSc (2014) in industrial engineering from Isfahan University of Technology, Iran. He then received a PhD (2019) in industrial engineering from Mazandaran University of Science and Technology, Iran. He is currently an associate professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering at Istinye University in Istanbul, Turkey. He has published more than 200 papers in high-quality journals. Dr. E.B. Tirkolaee is currently an editor in different prestigious WoS/Scopus journals, such as IEEE Transactions of Fuzzy Systems (IEEE), Artificial Intelligence Review (Springer), and Carbon Balance and Management (Springer). His main research interests include operations research, supply chain management, fuzzy systems, and multi-criteria decision-making. Dr. E.B. Tirkolaee has been featured on the “World’s Top 2% Researchers/Scientists List (Career-Long & Single-Year)” identified by Elsevier BV-Stanford University since 2021.


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Copyright
© 2026 Vilnius University
Open access article under the CC BY license.

Keywords
hospital service quality decision support framework interval-valued Pythagorean fuzzy sets entropy score function

Funding
The authors express their gratitude to the Deanship of Research and Graduate Studies at King Khalid University for supporting this research via the Large Group Project under grant number RGP2/587/46.

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