Value in Managing Performance
Healthcare performance management is a strategy and a set of methodologies and processes for managing the performance of the organization and its doctors, nurses, caregivers and provider network; its purpose is to achieve a common set of patient and business outcomes. Functionally, then, performance management is about aligning day-to-day processes and activities with the goals and objectives of the healthcare organization. This makes it of obvious value for several reasons: It communicates to all stakeholders an agreed-upon strategy and helps align all around it. It provides both a framework for measuring processes and outcomes and guidance on taking corrective action as needed. And it increases visibility as well as predictability, two characteristics often lacking in management of healthcare performance.
Many healthcare performance management efforts are begun using reporting and information systems and typically evolve to rely on business intelligence (BI) systems. But while these provide important capabilities for measuring performance, such systems alone are insufficient. That is because most business intelligence processes are historically focused. In addition, business intelligence typically focuses on individual functions and processes, while healthcare performance management more broadly aligns processes with the organization’s strategy and goals.