Today, digital auditing tools and quality management systems make it easier to measure and monitor the quality of healthcare services.
While evaluating your own performance is a large piece of the healthcare quality puzzle, it’s also crucial to see how your own standards and metrics compare to other healthcare providers – that’s where benchmarking comes in.
Healthcare benchmarking is an important tool for managing and improving care quality.
“The key to its success lies in the ability to compare your own performance with similar healthcare providers at a group, regional or national level; this helps organisations to identify areas that may need improvement, establish new goals and work towards achieving them,” says MEG CEO, Kerrill Thornhill.
MEG CEO Kerrill Thornhill
Why is benchmarking so important?
Benchmarking provides a springboard for improvement, giving providers the opportunity to identify innovative best practices and learn from others who have achieved excellence. After all, why reinvent the wheel?
However, benchmarking is not a panacea that can replace all other quality efforts or management processes. Rather, benchmarking (and complementary interventions such as auditing and feedback) become natural drivers for a culture of change and continuous improvement.
What are the current challenges?
“One of the main challenges of benchmarking is collecting accurate and up-to-date information in an easily comparable format. Siloed systems and inconsistent data collection methods can make it difficult to evaluate performance indicators or metrics against a single standard,” says Thornhill.
“Fortunately, new technology solutions like MEG – a dedicated healthcare quality management software – can provide unprecedented access to standardised data sets.
“The cloud-based nature of the platform, easy-to-use mobile app and sophisticated integration capabilities with hospital IT systems and national databases enable data to be automatically collated, formatted and benchmarked against other organisations.”
MEG QMS and the future of benchmarking in healthcare …
Benchmarking will continue to evolve with the ever-changing healthcare landscape. As healthcare providers increasingly focus on quality and value-based care, benchmarking will help them identify best practices and areas of improvement, measure their performance against sector standards, optimise resource utilisation, and provide high-quality care.
In addition, the growing use of technology in healthcare will open up new possibilities for benchmarking.
The development of fully-configurable digital quality management systems, like MEG, will allow organisations to collect and analyse data quickly, benchmark performance faster, facilitating better decision-making and improved outcomes.
To find out more about MEG’s digital Healthcare Quality Management platform >> www.megit.com
