Performance measurement and the value of benchmarking among health care providers

There is a broadening appreciation of the importance of performance measurement and the value of benchmarking among health care providers.
This awareness has been strengthened by the increasing use of specific measures at all levels of the health sector.
These processes have led to improvements in the efficiency and quality in health services, at both local and national level.

 UPMC work has focused on developing, validating and assessing specific performance indicators aimed at measuring and demonstrating ISMETT’s reliability and efficiency.
A measurement of the average cost per bed per standardized inpatients has been developed for benchmarking purposes and therefore compared among all Italian hospital recognized as “Azienda Ospedaliera”, the Italian classification for specific public hospitals.
Despite the high specialized and expensive care provided, ISMETT ranked as one of the most efficient centres of the national health system.
On the other hand, there are hospitals that are characterized by low treatment level with expensive management.

 Institutions and health care providers must promote and maintain the development of a database of health performance indicators relevant to the dimensions of performance, areas or interventions, outcomes, determinants and infrastructure.           
This information will have direct relevance to the development of future health policy and will lead decisions about where the best investments should be addressed to improve health and wellbeing of the population in the longer term.
Given the composite nature of hospital services, broad measurement of outcomes may be distorted by factors that cannot be equally managed within each case and indices of performance can be imprecise and misleading.
To this end would be useful to develop accurate and reliable data systems, at micro- and meso-level, with performance indicators that are aligned to such complex and differentiated services.