Benchmarking In Healthcare Organizations

A set of metrics is used to measure the performance of the organization, in case metric fails to meet a set standard, steps are taken to correct the deficiency. The volume of the patient is of great importance for a health care organization. A drop in patients volume results into loss of business and may force the organization to decrease operational cost, by cutting labor and inventory expenses. On the other hand, increase in a number of patients is a sign of growth and requires an addition of staff and expansion of services.

Performance Management at Intermountain Healthcare Key Points   Operational focus - strategy rather than management. How will the organization prepare for the future if their primary customer (government) reduces spending? How will they address decreasing revenues caused by their increasing effiencies?

At Fort Madison Community Hospital they are focus at continuing improving quality service and managing care within the facility. To do this they have to measure accurately by different methods of quality improvement strategies. The managers also have to look at information technology applications and use benchmarking, milestones to help manage quality improvement to have a more effective facility.

Throughout this course I have learned about the various challenges that impede productivity and efficiency at today’s hospitals. These issues facing the modern healthcare organization come in varying forms from technological, staffing, and financial to name a few. There are no limits to what hospitals can face in these modern technologically savvy times. Below are the major issues that today’s hospitals are facing, though there are many facets to these topics it will be described as best as possible to meet overall challenges:

Benchmarking for clinical performance measurement involves collecting and reporting data on practices’ clinical processes and outcomes. Measuring clinical performance can create buy-in for improvement work in the practice and enables the practice to track their improvements over time. This information should also be used to identify and prioritize improvement goals and to track progress toward those goals. In addition, these data should be used to monitor maintenance of changes already made ("Module 7. measuring," 2013). Benchmarking can also be utilized to do a comparison between other health care organizations, provide areas where training could improve staff functions.

The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) core measures are geared at measurement of quality of care in specific areas. Development of the measures involves a rigorous process of incorporating information from stakeholders such as clinicians and medical societies, and

Which Tools Can Be Used to More Efficiently Manage the Flow of Patients in the Facility?

More methods are being created and taken place to ensure, inspect, repair and correct performance where it is needed to do so. MCOs have developed a new status quo of improving and performing better every year with tools such as the “Quality Drivers of Care” (Miller, 2004). One of these tools, perhaps the most important one, is the voluntary accreditation of MCOs by organizations such as the National Committee on Quality Assurance, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, and the Utilization Review Accreditation Commission, among others. While MCOs are not required to do so they choose to, to show the industry that they are being assessed in the quality and service they provide and that improvements are in fact being made. They are also drivers in effectiveness and quality assurance as MCOs now find themselves competing amongst each other not only on costs but also on their effectiveness.

“Joint Commission standards are the basis of an objective evaluation process that can help health care organizations measure, assess and improve performance” (The Joint Commission, 2015).

In any continuous quality improvement effort, measurement is the key element (Sollecito, & Johnson, 2013). “Measurement and statistical analysis are used to assess the impact of an improvement effort” (Sollecito & Johnson, 2013). To Measure the impact of the program, the hospital utilized a departmental quality improvement assessment with a scoring matrix for self-assessment (McLaughlin, et. al., 2012). The scoring matrix consisted of five category ratings which each department head had to complete. Univer4sal Charting and Resource Utilization were also used for measurement (McLaughlin, et. al., 2012).

The information gained from such a comparison allows firms to determine how well they perform in comparison with the “best” and, in turn, develop new and better strategies to work towards making improvements or adopting certain best practices. Benchmarking is usually an ongoing process in which companies continuously seek the improvement of their practices. (Debitoor, 2017)

In the chapter on efficiency, Ritzer talked about how the health industry has created “walk in/walk out” surgery and emergency centers to handle patients in a more

The Baldrige Performance Excellence Program is a current model using certain criteria for purposes of improving quality and risk management. Health care organizations and risk managers around the country utilize this model to boost safety processes and outcomes. At the other end, a final goal is sought to reduce cost and get positive results for the organization. Criteria within the Baldrige model focuses on the successful operation of health care organizations that corroborate between units and departments, including leadership and performance, while also considering Joint Commission accreditation, Magnet status, and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement initiatives (The National Institute of Standards and Technology, 2014). The goal of the Baldrige model is to lead all components of the organization to be unified and productive as a whole, manage change, and examine and analyze data in order to be competitive and successful in the healthcare market.

Since 1993, the Truven Health 100 Top Hospitals program has used both independent and objective research to guide hospital and health system performance. In this process, they analyze public data sources to compare hospitals to similar organizations. The 100 Top Hospitals program uses a balanced scorecard that incorporates public data, proprietary, peer-reviewed methodology and key performance metrics to arrive at an objective, independent analysis of hospital or health system performance. This research measures performance, organizational alignment, progress

By looking at how other organizations are performing, they can pinpoint areas where they are failing. Organizations are also able to detect techniques that can advance their own procedures short of reinventing the wheel. They are able to fast-track the course of transformation because they have models from other organizations in their industry to help influence their modifications (What is Benchmarking?, 2015). Benchmarking is vital in the process of assessing the ability of Plaza Home Health to provide service above market competitors. Based on the weaknesses and threats identified in the SWOT analysis it is crucial that