Patients’ requirements prioritization on the House of Quality: The Case of Glucose Monitoring Devices in Young Adults with Type 1 Diabetes

The House of Quality (HoQ) is a product development and improvement tool part of the overall process of Quality Function Deployment (QFD), which is widely used by organizations since the late 1960s when Japanese researchers and industrials started to formalize the approach. This paper presents an overview on the use of the HoQ for medical devices applications highlighting a part of a case study where the focus is placed on the prioritization of requirements of glucose monitoring devices from the point of view of young adults with type 1 diabetes. The paper highlights priority ranking issues in the HoQ and makes use of a multi-criteria decision aid (MCDA) approach in order to a proper prioritization and application with HoQ as a support for development and improvement activities.