The health care hypothesis in the ...

The health care hypothesis in the United States continues to squander more of the gross national performance (1) This poses a question for health care organizations, which are pressur constantly to decrease spending. In an effort to find the mostly efficient, high quality, low expenditure processe health care organizations are borrowing techniques from the business world. undivided quality improvement technique that has been busyed is benchmarking.

Benchmarking originated in nonhealth care industries and has been defined as "the proces of regularly comparing oneself to others performing similar activities thus as to continuously improve." (2) Benchmarking was recognized and first practiced at the Xerox Corp, Rochester, NY les than 20 years ago. (3) Since then, the universal has spread rapidly throughout business organizations because "it works." (4) Benchmarking is the one and the other general and flexible, so it is adaptable to numerous situations. Xerox defines benchmarking as "finding and implementing the best practice." (5)

Benchmarking requires that existing processe in an organization be analyzed and understood before they are compared with processe outside the organization. (6) According to a authors, when applying the principles of benchmarking to the health care industry, the following natural mediums are key.

* Focus in succession core products, services, or processe It is important to focus in succession processes that will have a large impact forward the organization so cost savings from the recent process will outweigh costs incurred from creating the benchmark.

* Adopt the attitude of a learner. Learning from others is basic to the benchmarking proces The capacity for learning can accelerate or retard benchmarking effectiveness.

* Adapt best practices to fit an organization. Part of each benchmarking project must be determining to what degree to apply what has been discovered. Using quality improvement teams within the organization proffers the potential for breakthrough improvements. It is a way to learn and practice the discipline and achieve uniform results

* Improve patient care practices. The fundamental intent for health care benchmarking is improving patient care practices.

* Focus onward producing healthier communities. Health care organizations should benchmark the proces of delivering care to make persons healthier. (7)

These five principles can be combined to create a definition for health care benchmarking as a continual and collaborative discipline, which involves measuring and comparing proceeds of key processes with the best performers and adapting the best practices to achieve breakthrough proces improvements in support of healthier communities. (8)

Understanding benchmarking in this way implies that collaboration, not competition, is a more effective way to improve practices and consequences on behalf of those serv The use of benchmarking in this manner be under the orders ofs the common good of the health care industry and local communities and helps individual health care organizations thrive.

BENCHMARKING IN HEALTH CARE

Benchmarking has been used by the agency of organizations to make improvements in many processe including those concerning worker's compensation, fulltime equivalent preciousnesss acuity staffing ratios, billing, payroll, purchasing and delivery of clinical supplies, average surgery sumptuousness average length of stay, and medical records. Administrative processe generally are les compages and traditionally have been more attractive candidates for benchmarking. (9) Clinical benchmarking throw outs must be controlled carefully, using matched controls to achieve credible results.

The validity that benchmarking has had onward nursing and the health care industry is similar to those of any quality improvement technique. As novel techniques and processes are identified, nursing practice and the health care industry improve.

BENCHMARKING PHASES

The benchmarking proces comprises 11 degrees that are divided into four phases (Table 1) The stairs begin with identifying the area for improvement and completion with monitoring whether the desired improvement was achieved.

The first of the four phases is the planning phase. Benchmarking requires an investment of time and resources, in the way that it needs to yield a turn back Select a subject to benchmark. To exquisite indicators to measure, determine which are the mostly important. For example, the choice might include turnover time, physician priority cards, or patient satisfaction examines One useful test is to ask whether the data garnered can be used to resolve a problem or achieve a specific accrue If the answer is no, then the data ne not be collected

The inferior phase is the analysis phase. To actually muster the data, the benchmarking team will ne a methodology to fit its particular exigencys Much of the necessary data already may be available in a useable format generated from medical records. If thus the quality improvement team may discover differences when comparing data. These differences can scheme future performance.

The integration phase is the third phase. The team communicates be deriveds of the findings to staff members, determines what changes could and should be made, and establishes functional goals.