Quality measurement indicators for Iranian Health Centers

BACKGROUND Recently, quality is a serious concern in development of organizations. There are various indicators to assess quality and the purpose of this study was to identify the main indicators for quality measurement of Iranian health centers. METHODS This qualitative study was conducted in three stages: first, review of the literature was performed to identify different indicators for quality measurement in health centers; second, a tworound Delphi process was used with participation of 18 experts in both rounds; third, Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) method was applied to give weights to each indicator. RESULTS Twenty-seven indicators were identified from the literature review stage. The Delphi method reduced the list to 4 indicators. Developing a quality plan in the health center had the highest weight (38%) and percentage of followed complaints the lowest (12%). The consistency rate was 7.2% indicating appropriateness of the data. CONCLUSION This list of indicators can be used as a template for measuring quality of health centers in Iran and possibly in other developing countries.