Designing Iranian hospital organizational charts: Global comparisons

Background: Hospitals should have effective and efficient organizational charts to face the changing healthcare environment. Thus, for this purpose, the present study seeks to compile an organizational chart for Iranian hospitals. Materials and methods: The present study was conducted in two phase overview and qualitative (using focus group discussion). In the overview phase, the organizational charts of hospitals were analyzed in terms of complexity (i.e., degree of horizontal and vertical separations), and the initial hospital organizational chart was developed based on the results. Subsequently, experts were interviewed in a focus group discussion to finalize and validate the initial organizational chart. Results: The final organizational chart was designed to contain features such as internal divisions, specialization, reduction of organizational hierarchies, expansion of supervision scope, and moderate-sized organizational pyramid. Conclusion: Using designed organizational chart would eliminate the redundant managerial levels since it reduces organizational hierarchies to two levels of management, expands the supervision scopes, fosters a moderate-sized organizational pyramid, and catalyzes communications.