Objective To construct the performance evaluation framework and for clinical department heads of China’s public hospitals, and provide evidences for the modern hospital management. Methods Literature reviewing, Delphi method and analytic hierarchy process were used to develop the framework, and 32 clinical department heads for a large-scale comprehensive hospital were chosen to implement this model. We used TOPSIS and RSR to test the effectiveness of this model. Results We created the performance evaluation system consisted 4 class-1 indicators, 13 class-2 indicators and 66 class-3 indicators. This index system had better reliability and validity. Spearman test verified 3 evaluation methods were significantly related. Conclusions Scientific studies can help us build a scientific and practical work performance assessment indicator system.