Development of a Balanced Scorecard Suitable for Health Care Centers Based on DANP Hybrid Multi-Criteria Decision Making

Background and Aim: Parallel to the progress of services, organizational complexity levels in health care centers (HCCs) have increased. The influential factors in this regard include the variety of services, the non-uniformity of the centers’ management conditions, and the rising expectations from the health system. Therefore, considering many factors influenced and effective, improvement of health services requires development of a systematic approach to evaluate their efficiency and management system. The aim of this study was to develop a balanced scorecard (BSC) model suitable for HCCs using a hybrid approach that combines the Fuzzy Delphi and DNAP techniques. Materials and Methods: This research was a combined qualitative-quantitative study that was conducted with the aim of developing a BSC model suitable for HCCs. The statistical population consisted of 15 experts in health and medicine, who were selected based on the targeted snowball sampling. A researcher-made questionnaire and a 20×20 matrix questionnaire were used to collect the data. The questionnaire validity was calculated based on the experts’ opinions and the reliability was calculated using Cronbach’s alpha and consistency rate. The data was analyzed using Excel and MATLAB, and DNAP technique was used to determine the cause-and-effect relationship and the influence levels of the objectives. Results: According to the results of the Fuzzy Delphi technique in the panel of experts, 5 viewpoints with 20 objectives of the BSC suitable for HCCs were identified and replaced the traditional viewpoints of the BSC. In addition, these results showed that the views of growth and development, intra-organizational processes, and social responsibility are considered as the influential factors due to the positive D-R values, while the views of patients and society, financial status, and performance are considered as the factors that are effective due to the negative D-R values. Conclusion: The results of this study indicated that those points of view that are consistent with the goals of the HCCs should be used in the BSC in order to evaluate their performance. Also, prioritizing and determining the cause-and-effect relationship and considering the contribution of each point of view for achieving the goals of the HCCs can increase the performance.