Designing a Method of Performance Evaluation for Physicians and Nurses of Heart Failure Clinic Based on the Analytic Network Process

Background: Performance evaluation is an important tool to measure and manage the efficiency of activities in a local system or organization. It has been considered as a part of the strategic management of hospitals to provide optimal medical services, in the recent years. In the present study, we aimed to design a method based on the analytic network process to effectively evaluate the performance of physicians and nurses in a heart failure clinic. Methods: This is an experimental and applied research. The study population was those patients who referred to the heart failure clinic in summer 2019. The amount of the sample size in this study was determined with the used of Cochran sampling method. Data on patients’ demographics and the performance status of the studied clinic was collected using researcher made questionaries. Multiple criteria decision-making (MCDM) was used to analyze data based on the analytic network process by calculating the weight and rank of the criterias with using Super Decision and Excel 2019 softwares. Results: The results of the network analysis in performance evaluation indicate that self-care weight was 0.32 and the weight of service quality was 0.68. Of the patients' view, "the appearance of clinic" sub-criterion received the highest evaluation score, which is followed by the "service guarantee" and "reliability" sub-criterions. The aggregate score of the performance evaluation for the studied clinic was achieved 75.98%. Conclusion: According to the findings, the quality of services has the highest impact on performance evaluation. Moreover, the results showed that the designed method for performance evaluation based on the analytic network process can be considered as an efficient strategy in managing of the healthcare systems.