Healthcare KPIs

Providing efficient services is of the utmost importance when it comes to the health care industry. And so, the performance of healthcare systems needs to be analyzed using a number of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

These KPIs can be specific to certain types of hospitals. But the main purpose of these is to optimize the healthcare provided through monitoring and analysis in order to improve the patient experience. Some of the most commonly used KPIs in healthcare are:

Treatment Costs

This measure is important for managing monetary transactions since it shows the amount of cost incurred by a facility for each patient. It provides an idea about how a facility is contributing to the hospital as well as how much funding it would need for its own sustainability.

While higher treatment costs indicate higher profits, it can also indicate any exaggerated or abnormal expenses that need to be addressed. Besides, this cost is usually determined in terms of cost per unit, per age group, per operation and so on.

Average Hospital Stay

This calculates the time period of a patient’s stay at the hospital. This figure can differ significantly based on the reason behind the patient’s stay. Complex procedures, such as heart surgery can lead to a higher hospital stay time.

Meanwhile simple procedures such as the removal of wisdom teeth can take much less time. Hence, this measure needs to be monitors on the basis of different categories to comprehend the average stay better.

Patient Wait Time

As evident from the term, this KPI measures the amount of time a patient has to wait for availing hospital services. The wait time usually constitutes the time spent in setting up an appointment with a doctor, waiting in line for buying medicines, waiting for your turn to get treatment, etc.

This measure can have a direct impact on the satisfaction of a patient. A high figure indicates that the hospital is not prompt in delivering urgent services, which can be a deal-breaker in case of emergencies.

Hospital Readmission Rate

This figure shows the number of patients that return to the same hospital within a certain period of time.

This is basically a healthcare industry equivalent of customer retention. A high readmission rate can be an indicator of high service quality that draws patients back. On the other hand, it can also reflect any flaws made by the management when dealing with the necessity of readmission.

Patient Stay

Patient safety is undoubtedly one of the most important KPIs in healthcare. The service capacity and quality can greatly influence the state of patients. Any mishandling can lead to, say, post-op complications, infections or even sepsis.

Hence, tracking this KPI allows the hospital to identify how and why such problems occur and improve the processes at every stage. This can be measured in terms of distinct categories such as treatment-induced problems, post-op infections and more.

To conclude, there are several key performance indicators that can be used for health care institutions, some even specific to certain fields or areas of health care.

But these ones are measurable considerations that can reflect the long-term progress of a hospital. So, be sure to make use of these metrics for monitoring the overall performance of your employees and the organization.

Recommended for You

• Why Using Data Visualization for Tracking KPIs?
• Using Excel for Healthcare Financial Reporting: Best Practices
• Transform Healthcare with Spreadsheet Automation
• Healthcare Quality Metrics Examples and KPIs
• Healthcare management basics