Performance indicators: healthcare professionals’ views

• Published in: International journal of health care quality assurance Vol. 29; no. 7; pp. 801 - 815
• Main Authors: Gu, Xiuzhu, Itoh, Kenji
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Emerald Group Publishing Limited 08.08.2016
• Subjects: Adult; Business metrics; Efficiency; Expenditures; Female; Health & social care; Health administration; Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; Health service delivery; Health service quality; Hospital administration; Hospital Administrators - psychology; Humans; Male; Medical personnel; Medical Staff, Hospital - psychology; Middle Aged; Mortality; Nosocomial infections; Occupational safety; Operations management; Patient safety; Patient satisfaction; Perceptions; Performance evaluation; Performance indicators; Principal components analysis; Professional attitudes; Professionals; Quality improvement; Quality Indicators, Health Care; Quality of care; Quality of service; Questionnaires; Response rates; Stakeholders; Strategic management; Supervisor-Subordinate interactions; Surveys and Questionnaires; Usefulness; Variance analysis; Japan; Performance indicator; Professional view; Performance measurement; Hospital management
• ISSN: 0952-6862; 1758-6542
• DOI: 10.1108/IJHCQA-12-2015-0142

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to capture factors behind professional views of indicator usefulness as a common structure for assessing healthcare performance and their important characteristics to design limited key performance indicators (PIs) for holistic hospital management. Design/methodology/approach – Two surveys were conducted using self-administered questionnaires, in which hospital manager/staff respondents were asked to rate the 52 PIs’ usefulness. In total, 228 manager and 894 staff responses were collected. Findings – Eight factors were elicited from manager and staff responses as performance measures with 72 percent cumulative variance accounted for. Hospital managers and staff showed similar performance measure perceptions: high-utility acknowledgment on safety, operational efficiency and patient/employee satisfaction but relatively low-employee development concerns. Manager indicator usefulness perceptions were rather homogeneous and significantly higher than staff for almost all performance measures. Practical implications – Homogeneous manager views mean that a single key PI set for hospital management may be established regardless of hospital attributes. The following aspects may be measures that should be managed in a healthcare organization based on their key PIs: patient/employee safety, operational efficiency, financial effectiveness and patient/employee satisfaction. Originality/value – This is a pilot study on hospital management PIs in Japan. The eight-dimensional factor structure and findings about healthcare provider perceptions may be useful for healthcare management.