Student: Alexandre Miguel Amaral Vilar Ricardo

Title: “A Multiple Criteria Approach to support Value-Based Health Care”

Date: 31/03/2026

Time: 10h30 (Lisbon Time)

Location: Amphitheatre PA-3, Mathematics Building (-1 floor)

Supervisor: Professora José Rui de Matos Figueira (IST)

Brief description of the research work: This doctoral research addresses the growing complexity of decision-making in healthcare systems facing demographic change, the rising burden of chronic diseases, rapid technological innovation, and increasing financial pressures. In this context, the thesis explores how Value-Based Health Care (VBHC) can be operationalized through advanced decision-support methodologies. The research develops several methodological contributions based on Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA), including new approaches to manage inconsistencies in preference elicitation, reduce cognitive burden in model construction, and incorporate interaction effects between decision criteria. The thesis also proposes a structured roadmap to support the operationalization of VBHC across the full cycle of care for chronic conditions. In addition, it applies an MCDA-based benchmarking methodology to analyze the evolution of quality in Portuguese public hospitals from a longitudinal perspective. Overall, the thesis contributes to decision science and healthcare management by providing structured analytical tools to support value-oriented decision-making and governance in healthcare systems.