Until now, hospitals have been forced to sign long term contracts, commit hundreds of hours of staff time, and pay thousands of dollars for access to valid departmental benchmark statistics. The recommended process involves the following steps.
Executive management announces the purpose of the review.
This critical step helps develop confidence in the validity of compare group selection and in the integrity of the benchmarking numbers. The hospital identifies a liaison person to help sort out the inevitable data issues as they arise. This function will not create significant demands on hospital staff time, but it is critical. The liaison person does not have to know everything there is to know about the hospital, but should know whom to ask. Identifies departments offering the greatest potential for productivity gains, cost reduction, or process improvement based on compare-group performance.