Quality and the Balanced Scorecard Approach: Nursing and Health Care

The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is a powerful diagnostic tool which provides managers with a vision and strategy of the organization to completely value the performance of the organization(Roussas & Mccaskill 2015). BSC integrates financial measures with several crucial factors to create a long or short term plan(Huang 2009). This system emphasizes ‘leading and lagging indicators, internal performance perspectives, and quantitative and qualitative objectives’(Roussas & Mccaskill 2015). BSC works by four perspectives:

Balanced scorecard is a methodological tool that businesses use to get a measure by which someone can determine whether the set goals have been met or exceeded. It adds non-financial metrics to traditional financial metrics to give a well-rounded view of the performance in an organization. Balanced scorecards also help organizations to predict their success in meeting their overall strategic goals.

There are four perspectives when it comes to balanced scorecard. First one is learning and growth which means how the information and knowledge are processed and turned into competitive advantage against other companies. Second is about product manufacturing and making sure that all the products are made the same without any defaults. Third one is about customer satisfaction and making sure that customers are happy with product, service and price. Fourth one is about financial performance and making sure that company’s financial data is used properly.

“The balanced scorecard should translate a business unit’s mission and strategy into tangible objectives and measures. The measures represent a balance between external measures for shareholders and customers and internal measures of critical business processes, innovation and learning and growth. The measures are balance between outcome measures, the results of past efforts, and the measures that drive future performance. And the scorecard is balanced between objective, easily quantified outcome measures and subjective, somewhat judgmental, performance…”

A balanced scorecard is a performance measurement system, which takes into account the customers, internal business processes, learning and growth, as well as financial

In the evolving health care environment, a guiding policy and personnel planning is required with respect to the numbers, types and mix of professionals. To overcome the challenges of the existing health care system and practice environment, “nurses need to be well educated, team oriented, adaptable and able to apply competencies relevant to leadership” (The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health, 2011, p. 270). Health care system is complex and has conflicting interests. Nurse helps the patient and family to connect to their social support systems and help to coordinate care and improve patient outcomes. Evidence shows that high quality nursing care can reduce cost

The nursing profession has evolved throughout the years, but more rapidly in most recent years. The educational roles and responsibilities, in particular, have transformed in alignment with hospital organizations, to provide a more patient-centered focus on the delivery of care. As a member of the largest healthcare profession, nurses work in diverse settings and are the main providers of healthcare services. “Nurses are well poised to meet these needs by virtue of their numbers, scientific knowledge, and adaptive capacity, and health care organizations would benefit from taking advantage of the contributions nurses can make” ("Institute of Medicine," 2010, p. 2).

In this modern time, the health care system has changed tremendously. Patients are getting sicker, nurses are burnt out, and reimbursement is getting stricter. To answer the growing needs of the population and the health care industry, the Institute of Medicine and the other organization in collaboration with an elite group of nurse leaders, developed a new nursing role that will respond to the expanding demand of the health care.

The balanced scorecard includes four perspective areas focusing on financial and non-financial categories contributed to achieving the corporations’ strategic aims. The four broad categories are; financial performance, customer satisfaction, internal processes, and learning and growth (Blocher, 2013). By breaking the organization’s performance into four perspectives, organization leaders are able to quickly break down where the organization ranks measures that are most critical to success.

Nurses have always have been a major part of the healthcare system. According to Creating programs, the profession is one of the fastest growing and by 2020, they have estimated that there will be a need for 3.44 million nurses, however, although nurses are the fastest growing the nursing population is decreasing (Sheffield 2). They are the one’s who interact with the patients and their family on a daily basis. Creating personal relationships that allow the patient to see more than just an ill person, but as a human being that had a life before they needed medical help. Healthcare systems have faced many challenges of low staffing, higher costs for resources, recruiting and reserving of registered nurses, along with liability issues. Recently,

Nursing plays a vital role in transforming the present and shaping the future of healthcare. Dozens of specialties allow nurses the ability to integrate knowledge and practice to improve patient-centered care. My goal is to become a leader in the future of patient care. I will achieve my goal by pursuing

A Balanced Scorecard can be defined as a “performance management tool which began as a concept for measuring whether the smaller-scale operational activities of a company are aligned with its larger-scale objectives in terms of vision and strategy” (Wikipedia 2009, ¶ 1). Scents & Things will need to develop a balanced scorecard that will assist in meeting and help define the company’s values, mission, vision, and SWOT analysis. The balance scorecard is made up of four perspectives; financial, customer, learning and growing, and internal process. This paper will define each of the four perspectives objectives, performance measures, targets, and initiatives. The paper will also show how the perspectives relate

One of the most popular measures is the balanced scorecard (BSC). The BSC “strikes a balance between financial and nonfinancial measures (Horngren, Sundem, Stratton, 2008, p. 401)” and is used by about 50% of the top 1,000 United States firms. To develop this system, Guillermo needs to decide what the responsibility centers are and how performance is measured and acknowledged. He will also need to define the key performance indicators; financials, customers, internal processes, and employee growth and learning.

“Balanced Scorecard” System (BSC) is a strategic management concept introduced by Robert Kaplan and David Norton in the early 1990s. The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) contains both financial and operational measures on customer satisfaction, internal processes, and innovation and organizational improvement activities (Kaplan, Norton, 1992).

The balanced scorecard is a performance management tool that assists in the management of an organisation’s business strategy using traditional financial measurements combined with non-financial information (Candle 2008). Kaplan and Norton (1992), the creators of the concept, introduced the business scorecard as 4 main perspectives, customer, learning and growth, financial and internal business process. They breakdown the meaning behind each perspective is as follows: The customer