Journal of Education and Health Promotion

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. Materials and 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. Conclusion: 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.