Benchmarks: Elusive and Expensive, yet Essential to Improving Health Care

One of the most common questions we receive is around benchmarks; whether we have one benchmark or another, how to find one, etc. Usually the person asking is looking for such a specific benchmark, it just doesn't exist. Or if it does exist, it's very expensive to purchase (for example, fall rates or radiology turn around times).

In our experience, when a client purchases a benchmark or obtains a third party benchmark in some form, it usually ends up not exactly matching their own data set. Then their analysts usually spend more time explaining the differences between their institution's performance versus the benchmark (for example, they include overhead cost while we do not). Too many times have we seen hospitals spend large amounts of money on these "benchmarks" only to ultimately explain them away as irrelevant -- especially if the hospital doesn't look so good against them.

Despite these challenges, benchmarks remain essential to determining whether our hospitals are performing within a reasonable range. So what can you do to get benchmarks and cost effectively assess your hospital's performance?

1. Check with your local hospital association. Many, like the Michigan Health & Hospital Association have data sharing, mining and benchmarking systems already in place.
2. Make your own benchmark. Use data from your organization's best performers and compare them to everyone else. Make sure your population is large enough (i.e. statistically significant) and, if you're using people data (like lengths of stay by physician), consider whether you should keep individual performance private. And probably most importantly, severity adjust your data whenever possible.
3. Partner with other organizations. Partner with organizations similar to yours to pool data and create a data-sharing co-op. Chances are, they're working on similar improvement projects and could use the same benchmarks. If competition is too fierce between yours and your ideal benchmark organization and you don't feel comfortable approaching them, ask a neutral third party such as a consultant to broker the deal. Make sure you approach organizations of similar size, case mix and acuity and that they are respected by your project's stakeholders. Finally, make sure your organization has something to offer your potential partner organization. Maybe they don't need your lab TAT data but would gladly make an exchange for radiology data.
   

Finding the perfect benchmark doesn't have to break the bank or consume all of your project hours. Like all health care improvement projects, it just takes a little creative thinking.

Do you have other tips for obtaining or creating benchmarks? Share them here by posting your comments below.