Providing a Model Based on Recommender Systems for Hospital Services: Case of Shariati Hospital of Tehran

Background and Objectives: In the increasingly competitive market of the healthcare industry, the organizations providing health care services are highly in need of recommender systems to meet the clients’ needsand to to identify the factors affecting patient satisfaction focus. The purpose of this study, then, was to provide a model based on recommender systems in order to increase patient satisfaction with the quality of hospital services. Methods: In order to conduct the model, we used the data related to satisfaction forms of 556 discharged patients from Shariati Hospital in Tehran. By estimating the accuracy of the predictions of the model based on the mean absolute error criterion and the mean squared error, the values were respectively obtained as 40% and 49%. Findings: In this study, through weighting the characteristic for different groups of patients, the more important services were identified. Considering the number of 148 test data, it was determined that the model of the most important dimensions of the service for each cluster are correctly determined. Therefore, the hospital can decrease dissatisfaction of the new patients in each group through reinforcing the important services in each group, after discharge. Conclusions: Information technology can provide the possibility of moving towards better services by analyzing customer preferences and tailoring the content and process of service provision according to customer needs. On the other hand, the personalization of products and services is one of the most important factors affecting customer satisfaction