Decision making methods in Political Economy of health policy in crises: A systematic review for hospitals.

Abstract

Introduction: we will attempt to fill an important gap that emerged from the preliminary literature review: Do Decision-making methods in hospitals reach homogeneous conclusions about their application? Methods: For this systematic review, we have searched PubMed, Heal-link, Register PROSPERO and OSF, and forward and backward citations for studies published between databases inceptions and July 30, 2024. The studies we included based on the inclusion criteria we formulated for the search would have no spatial restriction and were searched in English and French. The search was performed with tools according to the JBI Evidence Synthesis Method. We transformed the results and used KNIME software workflows to extract the results. We classified the studies according to their characteristics and extracted correlations between the variables considered. Main findings: the decision methods were classified into three categories according to KNIME's cluster analysis: financial crisis, covid-19, personal crisis. Efficiency measurement is prominent among the decision methods. The most used method is DEA. The results of the research were presented using visualization methods. Discussion: we discussed the heterogeneity among the studies considered found through clustering. We also discussed the extent to which the correlations confirmed the significance and certainty of the questions. Conclusions: the homogeneity or heterogeneity of the studies demonstrated confirmation of the initial hypothesis: decision making methods in hospitals in crisis do not exhibit homogeneity. The conclusions of the study are important for policy makers and have a strong social impact. We believe that the research will open space for further research in the future.