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Medical digital imaging system, as a mechanism for diagnosis and treatment of diseases, has a vital role in health care. In order to offer a qualified health care service, authorities should satisfy the patients by providing reliable and well-equipped medical systems in health care centres. Stakeholders, who are involved in making decisions on development and purchasing of medical systems, are interested in importance of factors for medical system selection. In this study, we concentrate on MRI technicians’ point of view on the use of a magnetic resonance imaging system. MRI, one of the most important innovations in the practice of radiology, is a non-invasive medical digital imaging technology. It uses a magnetic field and radio waves to enable 3D high-resolution detailed anatomical images of the organs, tissues and skeletal system within the body for disease detection, diagnosis and treatment monitoring (Mayo Clinic, 2016). MRI system is performed to diagnose not only spinal cord injuries, disorders of the eye and inner ear but also tumors or other abnormalities of many organs in the body such as liver, kidneys, ovaries, etc. MRI system does not use the X-rays or other radiation hence it is better than computed tomography scanning especially if frequent imaging is needed for diagnosis or therapy (US Department of Health & Human Services, 2016).
Selection of the best MRI system for a health care center has several challenges given the various stakeholders, vendor alternatives, and criteria that have to be considered. Amongst them, MRI technicians are one of the most important users and stakeholders. Including multiple conflicting criteria, goals or objectives, medical system selection can be considered as a multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) problem, an advanced field of operations research. The Analytic Hierarchy Process is one of the most widely used MCDM methods. The tool allows the decision maker to construct problems in the system of a hierarchy: the objective, the criteria, and the alternatives. The AHP has been used in various areas such as selection, evaluation, resource allocation and decision making, and almost all the applications including health care, education, management, manufacturing, politics, and finance (Saaty, 1977; Saaty, 1980; Vaidya & Kumar, 2006; Steuer & Na, 2003; Zahedi, 1986; Vargas, 1990; Liberatore & Nydick, 2008; Schmidt et al., 2015; Ho, 2008; Ivlev et al., 2014; Kou & Ergu, 2016; Fırat et al., 2017; Khurana et al., 2017).
In this study, a MCDM method is proposed to determine weights of factors influencing medical digital imaging system selection. In spite of the significance of the selection of the best MRI system, there have not been any study focusing on MRI technicians’ opinion on the relative importance of the factors when selecting or purchasing an MRI system. Although there have been several applications of AHP method in healthcare, this is the first concentrated work to assess the relative priorities of various criteria at different levels in selecting an MRI system from the perspective of technicians.