Measuring Productivity Changes of Hospitals in Tehran: The Fuzzy Malmquist Productivity Index

Background and Objectives: The purpose of this paper is to suggest a novel method to measure the productivity changes of hospitals over time in the presence of linguistic variables along with fuzzy data. Methods: Applying the popular and applicable approaches including data envelopment analysis (DEA), Malmquist productivity index (MPI) and possibilistic programming, the fuzzy Malmquist productivity index (FMPI) is proposed. Results: In this study, the proposed fuzzy MPI is implemented for measuring productivity changes of 10 hospitals in Tehran. Notably, the input variables include the number of beds, the number of doctors, equipment & infrastructures and hospital location. Also, the output variables include the number of inpatient days, the number of outpatient, and overall patient satisfaction. According to the obtained results, the productivity of 5 hospitals has increased in 2014 in comparison to 2013. Conclusions: The obtained results have shown the capability of the proposed index to calculate the changes in productivity of hospitals in the presence of ambiguity in data.