Performance management is an important tool for the supervision of human resource in an organisation as it makes sure that the available scarce resources are utilised efficiently and effectively. The purpose of a performance management plan is to develop or design a planned, organised, systematic-wide methodology to process policy and performance measurement, evaluation and the enhancement of the health services being provided. According to Epstein and Manzoni, management control scholars have for a long time advocated for the alignment of strategy, structure, and systems that leads to a rise in a firm’s organisational performance standards needs to rise. Center to the concept of performance management is the development of a management plan that entails the manner of measuring performance considering that lack of both baseline performance data in addition to a deeply formulated and meaningful program metrics, the assessment of performance would be impossible. Therefore, the newly formed Eastwood health care firm requires a well-formulated performance management plan that is aligned to the organisational goals and strategies as a way of ensuring that clients benefit from the best services.
Goals and Objectives
Based on quality improvement, Eastwood health care has set clearly set out its mission, which is the provision of one hundred percent access to, and zero percent disparities in, the quality of health services being offered to the clients. Eastwood health care has been able to set up priorities that revolve around three main area which are growth and development, increased productivity and effectiveness, increase in quality that will help to guide the hospitals strive for improvement and assist in attaining of the strategic goals. Below is a sample diagram of a performance management cycle from which Eastwood healthcare will develop its performance management plan:
Figure 1: Performance management cycle
Eastwood healthcare goal statement is to raise the value of the services being offered though the improvement of quality and strengthening of the capability to offer cost effective care to the members of the community. Based on the above goals statement on the quality improvement of health care, five additional goals were formulated which include:
Safety of care which involves clients receiving hospital care without going through preventable maltreatment
Appropriateness of care which involves clients or community members receiving the right care based on evidence
Colluding with consumers, which means that there are appropriate collaborations between clients and the Eastwood healthcare management team alongside organisations at the levels of hospital care delivery, planning and care.
Ethics and compliance is another goal, which makes sure that employees of the health care observe a right ethical behaviour in accordance to all the appropriate regulations.
Compassionate customer care is the other goals for Eastwood health care that mainly dwells in the significant attribute and performance service that clients perceive or are subjected to. .
Some of the organisational objectives for the firm that are aligned to the firm’s goals include:
Eastwood Performance Measurement
Eastwood healthcare will adopt a number of performance measures that include the quality of physician services, quality of hospital services and patients experience of care.
Alignment with the Stated Goals:
The above three measures of performance, which includes quality of physician services, quality of hospital services and patients experience of care are well aligned to the goals of the organisation considering that the latter goes in line with the last goal of compassionate customer care. Ethics and compliance is line with the quality of physician services while the quality of the hospitals services is in line with the appropriateness of care (Goehrig, 2008).
Demonstration of Positive Healthcare:
The above performance measures are a road to positive healthcare outcomes considering that less patient complaints or a reduction in complaints shows they are experiencing good care. Additionally, a sign of customer satisfaction shows that the hospital is offering quality services to its employees that translate to workers having a good work morale. Additionally, checking whether all diabetic patients were given or administered checks on blood sugar levels shows quality physician care that translates to a positive healthcare outcome.
The above selected measures can be controlled by the organisation in terms of the collection intervals with the example of diabetes reports and patients experience of care and complaints. However, the steps and guidelines to be followed in establishing of the mortality rate are well stipulated and cannot be altered by the organisation. Likewise, all the above measures with the exception of mortality rates that falls under validity and reliability considering that mortality rate is standardised as it follows the guidelines set by the overall ministry of health.
Baseline Performance
Baseline performance for the selected measures refers to the picture of the performance of a process or result that is regarded to be normal or acceptable over a period of time and depicts the existing care systems. Therefore, Eastwood health care baseline measures will be as stipulated below:
Diabetes collaborative reports for population of focus like average HgbA1c and % of pts with 2 HgbA1c’s
Baseline – Percentage of grownups aged eighteen to seventy-five with type one or two diabetes with most recent haemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) higher than nine percent
Staff satisfaction
Baseline – Percentage of fully employed workers requesting for higher salaries
Mortality rates
Baseline - Percentage of deaths that resulted due to faulty health equipment
Patient waiting time
Baseline - Percentage of patients brought in on emergency basis who stayed in the queue for more than thirty minutes.
Patients complaints
Baseline - percentage of patients who complained of poor customer care from employees
Patients satisfaction
Baseline - Percentage of patients aged eighteen to fifty who were not satisfied with the services rendered by the hospital
Performance Evaluation
After the completion of the baseline calculation or determination, the healthcare needs to carry out a performance evaluation, which can then be used to determine whether the performance is according to the required standards or needs improvements. The most appropriate type of performance evaluation method in the case of Eastwood healthcare is referred to as benchmark technique, which compares the firm’s data with those of others that already exist in the healthcare industry (Lutwama, Roos, & Dolamo, 2013). Benchmarking technique features include five phases, which are planning where the firm determines the measure to benchmark against which healthcare, analysis where performance gap is identified between the Eastwood and the other firm, and integration where Eastwood will prepare for implementation of action. The other two phases include action where changes are implemented on Eastwood healthcare and maturity where the implemented changes are monitored continuously. Benchmarking is the most suitable method for Eastwood healthcare considering that:
Eastwood healthcare is a new health center in the industry and needs to be at par with the industry standards; hence, looking at the performance of best performing firms will help it to raise its performance.
The method will also help the organisation from reinventing the wheel or repeating the same mistakes that have been done by other existing firms in the health industry.
Speeds up change in the organisation through the implementation of tested practices that have been seen to work for other health care organisations.
In conclusion, concentrating more in setting up a general planning, building of good client relationship, and dwelling on operations is not enough to ensure that Eastwood healthcare succeeds in the industry considering that the definition of success is a vital factor. Success refers to the process of building a reliable, able team of people who are willing to work together with zeal in hardest of times with the aspiration and will of achieving a common goal. The definition what success means should then be accompanied by a set of clear goals, definition of suitable plans, maintaining the focus, and communication of work progress.
References
Epstein, M. J., & Manzoni, J.-F. (Eds.). (2002). Performance measurement and managementcontrol: A compendium of research. New York: Elsevier Science, Ltd.
Goehrig, R. (2008). The role of leadership in building high performing, sustainable organizations. Government Finance Review, 24(6), 6-14.
Lutwama, G. W., Roos, J. H., & Dolamo, B. L. (2013). Assessing the implementation of performance management of health care workers in Uganda. BMC health services research, 13(1), 1.
