Six Keys To High Performing Hospitals: Key #5

The fifth key to high performance may seem obvious, but when looking at hospitals that are struggling on their bottom line, it is not so obvious to them.

5) Defined organizational objectives, targets and metrics.

The only surprise to me in the study is that only 6 out of the 10 high performing hospitals in the study mentioned this. It relates to the popular axiom, "If you can't measure it, you can't manage it". All hospitals have great financial measures, quality standards and customer service scores at an organization wide level. These are usually included in a monthly dashboard shared with the Board. But what about at the department level? Does your facility have metrics to track all key performance areas? And how often is this data collected?

We at Compirion Healthcare Solutions often find this kind of data lacking. And if it is collected, it is not done on a frequent enough basis. The Board level dashboard concept must be applied at the department level (and interdepartment level) for all operations. The data should be monitored on a daily basis. Looking at last month's data will not show all of the performance fluctuations that occur. Plus it is too old to be useful for making the needed adjustments.

Gathering daily metrics is only part of the necessary action to achieve high performance. Knowing where you are today is important, but you must also set the appropriate and achievable benchmark for where you want to be. There are plenty of standards out there, some of which may seem unachievable. We have found in working with hospitals that they are surprised at the high levels of performance that they can achieve. We now resort to sharing the risk and providing them a money back guarantee if together we don't achieve this level of improvement.

So first you meed to measure where you are today, then set the benchmark for where you want to be and track your progress with daily measurement. How you get from A to B is an intensive process that is a whole subject on its own.

More on this later.

Mark Brodeur