title: Assessing the service quality of Iran military hospitals: Joint Commission International standards and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) technique.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Military hospitals are responsible for preserving, restoring and improving the health of not only armed forces, but also other people. According to the military organizations strategy, which is being a leader and pioneer in all areas, providing quality health services is one of the main goals of the military health care organizations. This study was aimed to evaluate the service quality of selected military hospitals in Iran based on the Joint Commission International (JCI) standards and comparing these hospitals with each other and ranking them using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) technique in 2013.
  
  
  METHODS
  This was a cross-sectional and descriptive study conducted on five military hospitals, selected using the purposive sampling method, in 2013. Required data collected using checklists of accreditation standards and nominal group technique. AHP technique was used for prioritizing. Furthermore, Expert Choice 11.0 was used to analyze the collected data.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Among JCI standards, the standards of access to care and continuity of care (weight = 0.122), quality improvement and patient safety (weight = 0.121) and leadership and management (weight = 0.117) had the greatest importance, respectively. Furthermore, in the overall ranking, BGT (weight = 0.369), IHM (0.238), SAU (0.202), IHK (weight = 0.125) and SAB (weight = 0.066) ranked first to fifth, respectively.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  AHP is an appropriate technique for measuring the overall performance of hospitals and their quality of services. It is a holistic approach that takes all hospital processes into consideration. The results of the present study can be used to improve hospitals performance through identifying areas, which are in need of focus for quality improvement and selecting strategies to improve service quality.
authors.affiliation: Health Management Research Center, Baqiyatallah University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Mohammadkarim
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bahadori
authors.affiliation: School of Management and Medical Information Sciences, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran.
authors.forename: Ramin
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Ravangard
authors.affiliation: Health Management Research Center, Baqiyatallah University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Maryam
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Yaghoubi
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Services Management, Tehran North Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Khalil
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Alimohammadzadeh
keywords: Accreditation; Iran; Joint Commission International standards; analytic hierarchy process technique (AHP); evaluation; military hospital; quality