Performance reports/dashboards are essential key metric tools in the health care system since they assist managers especially nurses to have access to up-to-date holistic data concerning the wellbeing of the patients, the state of the facility financially, work operations/schedules and the quality of care rendered to patients. Additionally, it saves time that a health practitioner would use to go through a pile of files manually and compile a comprehensive report for further analysis. A dashboard in my place work (St. James Hospital) where I work as nurse manager would be critical in improving health care services to our clients and reduce adverse cases such as pressure ulcers occasioned by delays in attending to patients and make informed decision on how to utilize the available resources to meet patients’ requirements. This reduction of negative events has immense effects on patients’ satisfaction apart from wellness. The dashboard that would be useful for St. James is a Microsoft spreadsheet which is programmed in such a way every authorized health worker in St. James can have access and enter data as they discharge their duties. The management with the help of the IT department will develop computerized spreadsheet with logins where practitioners are required to enter data on a daily basis (Barta, 2010). These data will be compiled weekly to depict the performance of the hospital on a particular week. The results of the entered data would be displayed on graphs and chart on the hospital website for all interest parties to see and offer feedback. These data indicators will help the management of the hospital to plan and focus on the vision of the hospital using the available resources. The following are the useful indicators that will be utilized in depicting the performance of the staff on the dashboard.
Financial indicators
It is critical for a nurse’s manager and other leaders in the hospital to be a position where they can manage the cost of operations efficiently and ensure the clinical activities they are in-charge of run smoothly, and patients get the value of their money. Additionally, apart from managing operations, the leaders of each department at St. James will be required to track down the purchases and cash flows using financial statements and inventory records. The health center will mainly use two financial indicators which include cash flows and debt service coverage, to assess how funds were used and generated. The management will identify essential services which have a direct impact on the patients such as surgery, emergency care, ventilation care and pain management. There has to be an emphasis on utilizing the available funds to meet the needs of the patients. As such, the management at the end of every week will check how many patients benefited from the cost incurred in providing these priority services (Frick & Stone, 2009). This cost-benefit analysis will help the management to gauge whether the funds were utilized in meeting patients’ needs or the cost was too high compared to the benefits the patients got.
Operational indicators
On the daily operations, nurses will be required to comply with standard procedures such as rounding and bedside reporting. Hence, it will be mandatory to record for instance how many rounding and bedside reporting were completed satisfactory (Nash et al., 2010). These two standard procedures are essential in motoring patients’ progress, medication, wound care and turning. This will help to prevent adverse events such as pressure ulcers from occurring. In addition, by carrying these activities nurses are in a position to address patients’ needs such as toileting.
Satisfaction indicators
It is critical ensure patients are fully satisfied with medical services they are receiving at St. James hospital. Although it is not easy to assess whether a patient has been satisfied adequately, the management has identified patient experience reports, patient’s average length of stay and readmission cases as indicators which can be used in assessing patient’s satisfaction (Nash et al., 2010). Nurses will be required to collect weekly reports on patients experience during their stay in the hospital. Additionally, nurses will have to identify negative and positive feedbacks from patients’ reports and record them. This will help in the identification of the areas which need improvement and where the hospital is going wrong in giving care to patients. The number of readmission cases and extended stay in the hospital are an indication that the quality of care is inadequate, and patients needs are not addressed hence they are not satisfied. As such, on readmission and long stay cases, there is a need for proper evaluation of the patient’s records to identify any mistakes or errors which have led to this cases occurring. Therefore, it is vital to record these incidences to alert the areas which need improvement.
Quality indicators
The hospital will utilize mortality and hospital-acquired infections rates as indicators to assess the quality of caregiving to a patient. High cases of mortality and hospital-acquired infections depict will correlate to poor state quality of services and equipment at the health facility. As such, nurses will be required to collect daily reports on these cases and update this information on the spreadsheet. Hospital-acquired infections such as ventilation-acquired pneumonia indicate that there is negligence in handling mechanical ventilation equipment and ventilated patients. Therefore, there is need to improve hygiene and train health practitioners on how to use medical equipment such as ventilators.
Reference
Barta, R. A. (2010). Dashboards: A Required Business Management Tool.Biomedical Instrumentation & Technology, 44(3), 228-230.
Frick, K. D., & Stone, P. W. (2009). Analyzing economic outcomes in advanced practice nursing. Outcome assessment in advanced practice nursing, 63-88.
Nash, M., Pestrue, J., Geier, P., Sharp, K., Helder, A., & McAlearney, A. S. (2010). Leveraging information technology to drive improvement in patient satisfaction. Journal for Healthcare Quality, 32(5), 30-40.
