As feedback to our article on What is benchmarking and what are the benefits of benchmarking in healthcare? we got some further questions which we’d like to share as a follow-up to our Q&A:
Is benchmarking done only on an organizational level or at an individual level, as well? Are there positive examples how individual data has been used in the Nordics?
The primary audience of benchmarking is the department or specialty management (e.g. chief physician, head of department, consultant, head nurse, senior nurse). Usually, a team of 2-5 people within an organisation actively participate in the benchmarking events and use the online reports. Secondary audience are both the hospital management and the personnel of each specialty.
A summary of the benchmarking results is presented annually or biannually to the hospital management, especially if the hospital participates in several benchmarking groups (in different specialties). For the personnel of each specialty, results are usually used in the annual or monthly reports and in possible benchmarking reviews and presentations (usually presented by NHG representatives).
NHG benchmarking, including the online report, is not a clinical decision tool used in operative level work but a tool for tracking development, finding best practices, and understanding what the level of performance compared to other hospitals is.
Currently, there is no individual physician’s efficiency module for special care available but in the primary care benchmarking this is already up and running in Finland. In primary care and social care benchmarking, where the primary audience is often larger than in the special care benchmarking, the results may be used also in individual practitioner’s (or other professional’s) annual development discussions (physician’s efficiency module).
Are hospitals using Epic in Finland participating in NHG benchmarking groups? If yes, do they use Epic’s own tools to get benchmarking data?
In Finland, Epic software is used in the capital region (HUS Helsinki University Hospital, Hospital district of Helsinki-Uusimaa and some municipalities of the district). It is still in the deployment phase and some more municipalities and hospitals are joining the system in the future. There are Epic-based hospitals participating in the emergency care and surgery benchmarking groups, at the moment, and data solutions are done through a data lake of the hospital.
Our understanding is that, currently, Epic’s own tools are not used in Finland for benchmarking.
If you have any further questions or would like to discuss benchmarking possibilities please do not hesitate to contact us.