OBJECTIVES:  The aim of this study was to develop and illustrate the use of an alternative weight elicitation method for use in multi-criteria decision analysis for healthcare, in the context of imprecision and uncertainty. METHODS: The proposed method consists of two steps: 1) the rank ordering of evaluation criteria based on decision-makers’ (DMs) preferences using the principle component analysis and 2) the estimation of the criteria weights using the variable interdependent analysis and the Monte Carlo simulation. The method was applied to a hypothetical case study involving the elicitation of DMs’ preferences for five criteria, cost, sensor size, zoom, weight and optical image stabilizer, used to select the best device for eye surgery. RESULTS: The criteria were ranked from 1–5, based on a strict preference relationship established by the DMs. For each criterion, the deterministic weight was estimated as well as the standard deviation and 95% credibility interval. CONCLUSIONS:  The proposed method is appropriate in situations where only ordinal DMs’ preferences are available to elicit decision criteria weights.