KPIs for HR evalution in health care industry



In humanitarian and health care the importance of human factor is greater as compared to other business areas.  Sure, healthcare specialists make an effective use of new technologies and the IT solutions.  At the same time, the price of human mistake in healthcare industry can be too high.  A person’s death is a mistake that cannot be corrected.  That’s why it is imperative that every organization working in healthcare industry possess educated and qualified personnel.

Human resource management in Health Care has a number of peculiarity is and differences compared to other businesses.  As already said above, mistakes in Health Care may have a very high price.  It is important that employees working in this area are satisfied with their work, have suitable working conditions and fair compensation.  Besides, nurses and doctors have to undergo regular training, both practical and theoretical, to improve professional level.

It is not very easy to find talented surgeons of therapists.  It is even more difficult to employed excellent doctors for children, as well as family doctors.  Moreover, HR managers in Health Care have to retain good specialists.

As Health Care is customer oriented business HR evaluation in this field should include customer perspective. A satisfied customer makes the most positive image for hospital or an individual doctor.  That’s why, it is important to select the right key performance indicators when using balanced scorecard system to measure HR performance in Health Care.  Some of our suggestions are:

  1. Number of patients with medical errors per 1000 patients. Sometimes medical errors can be tragic.  Every mistake in doctor’s decision or a diagnosis may cause health problems or even patient’s death.  For this reason, this indicator should be kept at the lowest possible level.  As doctor’s work is very intense this indicator should be evaluated as often as possible.  Very often, the large hospital can have hundreds of patients.  This indicator shows both professional level of doctors and nurses, their attitude work and professional level of HR department that timely measures this KPI to prevent possible problems and mistakes.  If this indicator goes up this signals about negative trend.  Thus, the causes of the problem should be located and proper solutions must be offered.  With a high errors rate the hospital will be a target for attacks from patients, government regulators and social organizations.  High error rate will surely create a negative image for a hospital.
  2. Number of patients leaving against medical advice. This is a very interesting indicator.  On the one hand, a patient is not obliged to follow medical advice offered by a doctor.  On the other hand, doctors and nurses have to be very persuasive when talking to patients.  If this indicator keeps increasing it means that patients do not trust doctors or have some other reasons to disregard medical advice.  High number of patients leaving against medical advice may signal about problems in communication between doctors and patients were some psychological obstacles in their relations.  Frequent evaluation of such indicator will surely demonstrate professional level of doctors and nurses and harmony in their relations with patients.