In the article, Healthcare Facility Benchmarking, Mulva and Dai (2009) point out the need for facilities to engage in the benchmarking process, as it provides them with a better understanding of the quality of medical services offered. Benchmarking helps in highlighting the metrics within other facilities that define quality with an aim of ensuring that the facility intending to engage in the same market has a higher capacity of attaining these metrics. Mulva and Dai (2009) provide a scenario in which leading healthcare facility owners and contractors undertook a process of benchmarking in 2009 as a way of establishing the metrics that had been set within the health care industry. From the results, it is evident that benchmarking helps towards increasing output within the health care industry. Creazza et al (2016) support this claim indicating that benchmarking acts as a guarantee for the improved quality of medical services based on the responses collected from the benchmarking process in a given market.
A review of the article played a key role towards improving my understanding of benchmarking, as it provided me with an overview of specific scenarios within which health facilities may engage in benchmarking. Ravichandran and Mishra (2014) indicate that benchmarking creates a platform for dealing with some of the underlying issues affecting a given health care organization, as it defines the expectations from different quotas on health care achievements. From my understanding, benchmarking results from the need for facilities to match the quality of output from other facilities by creating an avenue where one facility is able to collect relevant data. Thus, this means that the facility engaging the benchmarking process ought to consider the responses presented during this process as part of its capacity to engage in specific improvements.
In my view, the concept of benchmarking may be utilized when dealing with the financial decision-making process in several ways that would act as determinants of success achievement in the overall improvement process. Firstly, benchmarking provides the management of a given health care facility with a clear understanding of areas in which the facility ought to invest in as part of improved quality of services. Through the benchmarking process, the facility is able to gain an overall understanding of what it means to invest in quality health care outputs with the focus being towards improved success margins. Secondly, benchmarking also highlights specific changes that a health care facility ought to implement with an aim of improving delivery of the expected quality of medical services to match the needs of health care consumers within the different market. That means that the management within the health care facility may engage in making financial decisions focused on implementing the change expected.
It is equally important to note that the process of benchmarking may present a major challenge when dealing with situations where a health care organization engages in matching with a non-credible organization. The first notable risk is that the organization engaging in the benchmarking process may reduce its credibility, as it will focus on making changes to match the non-credible organization without due consideration. As highlighted earlier, organizations engaging the benchmarking process intend to ensure that they match with the organizations they consider in their benchmarks. Secondly, engaging in benchmarking with a non-credible organization may result in a situation where the organization involved may find itself experiencing limitations in terms of quality of services for medical services offered. The non-credible organization may lack the expected platforms or metrics that define the quality of medical services, thus, creating the risk identified.
References
Creazza, A. et al (2016). Benchmarking of health technologies distribution models: An investigation of Lombardy’s local health authorities. Benchmarking: An International Journal, 23(4), 817-842.
Mulva, S. P., & Dai, J. (2009). Healthcare facility benchmarking. HERD: Health Environments Research & Design Journal, 3(1), 28-37.
Ravichandran, N., & Mishra, R. (2014). Improving efficiency and community-wide practices: benchmarking through integrated pastoral care. International Journal of Healthcare Management, 7(3), 214-200.
