Using AHP and ANP approaches for selecting improvement projects of Iranian Excellence Model in healthcare sector

Abstract

Healthcare has a long tradition in developed methods and models to assess the quality of work. There have been several models presented for deployment and assessment of quality management which much more attention is paid to organization excellence models due to their being total and complete. The European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) excellence model can be used for continuous improvement of activities and performance of organizations from both private and public sector by establishing a Total Quality Management (TQM) philosophy. Iran national productivity and excellence award in collaboration with Azad University – Science and Research campus and ministry of health, treatment and medical training, designed a model for healthcare organizations and this model was used in 23 hospitals. The study was based on experience gained in hospitals, to rank the improvement projects using Analytic Network Process (ANP) and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) methods. The objective of this paper is to present the results of the application of AHP and ANP to select a project within the field of healthcare in Iran. Project number nine “Leadership Development and Succession Planning” got the highest score, and it is the most appropriate choice. Key words: European Foundation for Quality Management, multi-criteria decision methods, analytic hierarchy process, analytic network process, health sector.