USA: +1 725-224-8795 
Sign in
Many healthcare organizations use data-driven key performance indicators (KPIs) to track their performance, and all of them collect vast arrays of information about critical performance indicators. This data is collected and analyzed by various departments and here lies the biggest problem with data processing in the field of health care. Data is collected, edited and stored in a variety of formats, so accurate comparison is a major challenge. Of course, those who are interested in this information want to gain a better insight and a deeper understanding of the data obtained, so they try to use dashboards that create a more conscious picture of their health care organization and make it more transparent.
The target population in the Swedish Covenant hospital for the quality improvement project is all the patients admitted to the institution. The stakeholders for this program are those people who are involved from the beginning in implementation of barcode scanning system as well as those affected by the process at the hospital.
The active, internal stakeholders (those who have connection with bar-coding in everyday practice and are decision-making people) will include: nurses, physicians, unit nursing managers, clinical educators, individuals who provide pharmacy. The passive, internal stakeholders (not involved directly in implementation process but promote its success) will include administration, accounting, IT specialists and other support staff. Another group of internal stakeholders are the patients themselves who are affected by the process of implementing the bar code and scanning it. However, in order for our scan project to succeed, we must not forget about external stakeholders. For this group we can include our sponsors, suppliers as well as representatives of local authorities and community. Each of the many stakeholders is responsible for the successful implementation of the bar code system. The roles of individual participants are very different, but only a joint effort can lead to a successful completion of the project.
Nowadays, introducing novelties especially in institutions with conservative views requires a lot of effort and overcoming many shortcomings because changes are associated with huge expenses. Introducing a new system or device is a time-consuming project. Marketing person must convince users of the value and usability of the new system. In this case, direct users of scanners and barcodes are doctors, nurses, pharmacists, laboratory workers although the final decision on the approval and implementation of the project belongs to the hospital administration including the chief executive officer (CEO).
Establishing a team responsible for deploying a barcode project is another important milestone. A multidisciplinary support team should represent both the people who will use the actual software as well as people who will use the reports and data from the system itself. Including at least one member from each department in the team retains a balanced perspective and ensures that all voices are heard. The support team will include: team leader, representatives of nurses and doctors, nurse certified in bar code scanners, nurse informatics, nursing educator, representatives of the department of quality control, IT, finance and risk management . Members of the administration and management team will be invited to discuss aspects of the project with the rest of their department. The leader of the team will be the connection with the executive sponsor. It is important that the work schedule of the team members is adjusted so that they can focus on the project implementation. The project leader does not have to be a computer scientist or to be associated with IT processes. It could be someone from the nursing management who understands the hospital challenges and the needs for barcode scanning system. The project plan should outline goals, costs and barriers and barriers for the implementation of the program.
To choose the right key performance indicators (KPIs), healthcare specialists need to consider the goal of their metrics. In SC hospital quality improvement project, the key indicators will be medication errors occur, mortality rates, ratio of total benefits to total costs, patient satisfaction percentage and training expenditures per employee. Regular measurement of safety-related performance indicators can be considered as one of the priorities. Hospital management can use measurements to identify problems where performance is suboptimal and then evaluate different types of interventions to improve. Priorities can be reviewed every few years to ensure their compliance with needs and good practices.
According to Hughes (2008) improvement initiatives using external benchmarks. Benchmarking in health care is defined as the continual and collaborative discipline of measuring and comparing the results of key work processes with those of the best performers in evaluating organizational performance. Benchmarking may require significant staff time and resources to complete. External and internal benchmarks in SC hospital are focusing of patient satisfaction of care, quality of care and nursing knowledge and skills. Benchmarking is not just about copying what other successful organizations are doing. It includes not only understanding what the best goals of class organizations are and how they have achieved these goals by improving processes and operations; forward this information back to your organization to determine how to achieve comparable results, taking into account exceptional internal and external conditions. In SC improvement project there will be some benchmarks under level to improve to patient safety, like overall hospital rating, patient recommendation, staff IT knowledge.
Modern health care is encouraged to ensure the uniform provision of high-quality healthcare. Benchmarking pushes the boundaries of best practices always. Practitioners, aware of developments in other places, can develop the practice with minimal effort, concentrating resources on new areas of practice development. The potential of benchmarking in healthcare has been developed from quantitative performance measurement and consideration of processes to qualitatively achieve best practices regarding patient experiences. Further research and applications are needed to ensure that benchmarking in health meets its goal, namely to deepen our knowledge about where to focus policy efforts to improve the efficiency of health systems.
Hospitals are constantly developing strategies, plans and tactics. Dashboards can help users map these plans so that managers can track the progress of their goals or convince them that they must choose an alternative route. Key performance indicators will stand out for everyone who works in hospital dashboards, so they can even be used as guidance tools that help stakeholders brainstorm new ways to achieve business goals. Dashboards can also help medical facilities to keep employees focused on their goals, showing them which indicators make the biggest changes.
