Strategies to promote patient-centeredness within the healthcare industry: A grey-based multicriteria decision making methods.

Abstract

Rationale: The international policy agenda has recently advocated for the development of patient-centeredness in healthcare service delivery. Consequently, various stakeholders in the healthcare systems have expressed a vital need for identifying strategies and tools that can enhance patient-centeredness.

Aims and objectives: The objective of this paper was to prioritise and benchmark the strategies that can improve patient-centeredness in healthcare service delivery.

Method: We employed a multi-stage research scenario that consisted of two phases: a phase including of a scoping review to identify the current strategies to improve patient-centeredness (PC); And, a phase including of a multicriteria best-worst method to assign weights to PC principles, and a questionnaire administered to a sample of experts for benchmarking the strategies derived from the literature using the Grey Multi-Attributive Border Approximation Area Comparison (MABAC-G) method.

Results: The most important principle of patient-centeredness was deemed to be access to care, while telehealth tools and Electronic Health Information Systems were respectively suggested as the most efficacious platforms for promoting patient-centeredness.

Conclusion: We recommend that administrators and policy makers in the healthcare industry prioritise the implementation and research of strategies such as telehealth tools and electronic health information systems to enhance access and patient-centeredness in the healthcare systems.