Identify and Prioritize the Strategies of a Trauma Hospital by Analytical Hierarchy Process

Abstract

Background and Aim: Identifying strategic issues enables the organization to select appropriate strategies and guide the organization in line with its objectives by identifying specific competencies, discovering competitive opportunities, determining weaknesses, reducing barriers and threats. In this regard, prioritizing strategies is important due to financial and time constraints. Therefore, the present study aimed to Identify and prioritizes the strategies of a trauma hospital by Analytical Hierarchy Process. Methods: This descriptive study was carried out at trauma hospital in Yazd in 2018 with the aim of identifying the internal (weakness and strength) and external (opportunities and threats) factors and prioritizing each factor by AHP. The research population consisted of all senior and middle managers of the hospital who were selected purposefully. Information gathering was done by interviews and focused group discussion as well as the researcher-made questionnaire. The data were analyzed by AHP method and Expert Choice 11 software. Results: In the phase of identifying, 101 weaknesses, 23 strengths, 35 opportunities and 14 threats were identified. The highest priority in each area was related to the experienced and committed staff (0.289), weak monitoring system to monitor physicians (0.235), hospital geographical location factors in terms of centrality in the city (0.283) and negative attitudes of people regarding high death rates (0.310), respectively. Conclusion: According to the results, it is recommended to use the capacities of the University of Medical Sciences to monitor medicines and to set up smart systems in order to increase the supervision of medical staff. Hold joint committees with military organizations to take advantage of the media's capacity to change people's views and facilitate traffic on the streets around the hospital is necessary.