Cloud technology and fuzzy-based decision support systems driving sustainable development

Abstract

Health 4.0 primarily focuses on quality and effective healthcare through integrated medical and technological paradigms. Specifically, cloud technology plays a crucial role in the recent health domain for storing data and performing analytics. The cloud computing market in healthcare is estimated to be USD 39.4 billion in 2022, and countries like India are investing in Health 4.0 for technology-driven quality healthcare. Driven by the claim, many cloud vendors (CVs) strategize the marketplace. As a result, selection becomes complex, and literatures show that (1) uncertainty is an inevitable issue in the selection; (2) subjectivity affects accuracy during selection; (3) the importance of experts and criteria are not methodically driven with attention to hesitation and interactions; and (4) customized ranking of CVs is not adequately explored. To counter the challenge, a combined decision approach with a Fermatean fuzzy set is presented, including a variance method for experts’ weights, an alpha measure for criteria weights, and an algorithm for customized ranking of CVs. A case example of a health center in Tamil Nadu (India) is considered for demonstration of the usefulness, and sensitivity/comparative analyses are performed to realize the pros and cons of the developed approach.