Financial Controls and Outcomes
Describe the role of financial benchmarks and performance indicators in health care. Discuss how financial benchmarks and performance indicators influences health care delivery.
Sample Paper
Financial Controls and Outcomes
Describe the role of financial benchmarks and performance indicators in health care.
Financial benchmarking has been a critical tool to assist healthcare facilities to stay on financial cost and to identify specific areas of strength and weaknesses. Internal financial benchmarking allows healthcare facilities to gauge their progress towards certain monetary goals, while external benchmarking can assist healthcare facilities in determining how their processes and operations perform compared to those of their peer facilities (Akinleye et al., 2019). Financial benchmarks also help healthcare facilities to effectively assess the distribution of resources and to adequately justify the increase or decrease of budget in individual units of all healthcare facilities in a multi-facility system. Financial benchmarking can help to determine if the per-unit labor cost of a given health care facility is higher than normal based on admission or discharge rates (Jones et al., 2019).
Performance indicators play an essential role in healthcare by assisting in the identification of gaps in care in a given healthcare facility. Performance indicators also help in the measurement and evaluation of whether a given health care facility meets the established benchmarks related to the quality of care (Carini et al., 2020). Performance indicators are so important in the recognition and rewarding of above standard performance in healthcare facilities and the use of above standard performance to develop best practices (Carini et al., 2020).
Discuss how financial benchmarks and performance indicators influences health care delivery.
Financial benchmarks influence healthcare by helping to determine the financial performance of healthcare facilities, evaluating productivity, assessing the volume of care, and determining supply costs. In general financial benchmarks help to assess the efficiency of a healthcare facility and provide suggestions for improvement in the delivery of healthcare services (Akinleye et al., 2019). On the other hand, performance indicators help to encourage health facilities to meet the established benchmarks and provide quality healthcare services to patients (Carini et al., 2020).
References
Akinleye, D. D., McNutt, L. A., Lazariu, V., & McLaughlin, C. C. (2019). Correlation between hospital finances and quality and safety of patient care. PLOS ONE, 14(8), e0219124. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0219124
Carini, E., Gabutti, I., Frisicale, E. M., di Pilla, A., Pezzullo, A. M., de Waure, C., Cicchetti, A., Boccia, S., & Specchia, M. L. (2020). Assessing hospital performance indicators. What dimensions? Evidence from an umbrella review. BMC Health Services Research, 20(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-020-05879-y
Jones, C., Finkler, S. A., Kovner, C.T., & Mose, J. (2019). Financial Management for Nurse Managers and Executives (5th ed.). St. Louis, MO: Elsevier, Inc.
