There are many measures of organizational performance that can be used in healthcare organizations. The first measure is leadership. Because most, if not all, healthcare organizations have adopted quality improvement initiatives, leadership is an important element that determines whether or not the organization will achieve its objectives. Leadership is indeed important in changing the organizational culture from the traditional profit-focused culture to the conventional customer-focused culture. This is done by changing the organization’s vision, mission, goals, objectives, and strategies in a manner that supports the new culture.
The second measure is the financial measure. This entails measuring the organization’s revenues against its expenditures. Given the limited financial resources of healthcare organizations, an organization’s performance can be gauged by how well it allocates its resources to its numerous needs. Effective allocation of scarce resources will ensure that the organization does not incur budget deficits which may affect its ability to provide the services required by its clients.
Process measure is another important measure of the performance of a healthcare organization. The process entails “examining what must happen when, by whom, and in what sequence.” Process measure, therefore, answers the question of how well the organization has done and the effort they have put in the organization. Process measures are associated with the risk points of the healthcare organization. These “risk points are where failures, defects, or inefficiencies from any cause result in a disproportionate adverse impact on the outcome of that system.”
Lastly, outcome measures are very important in measuring the performance of a healthcare organization. Outcome measures answer the question of the end result of the organization’s efforts. For instance, have the efforts reduced the rate of occurrence of adverse events? Are more people able to access the organization’s services? These are some of the outcomes of healthcare organizations that determine their performance.