Peer Review and Benchmarking: Organizations Development - Research Paper Example

Peer Review and Benchmarking Peer review and benchmarking is a vital aspect towards an organizations development. It is important for an organization to benchmark its performance against established standard industry practices. Certain measures on performance that are recognized in the industry are used in assessment of organizations development. This research delves into the process of developing such measures and further gives the use of the measures while making reference to the health services industry. Development of the Performance Measurement Process During the development of an organization’s performance measurement process, it is of utmost importance to ensure that key stakeholders are engaged at every section of the process. Such stakeholders include funders, patient advocates, staff and every other individual that the service you provide touches on. One has to make sure that the whole process appears transparent to them and that their needs drive it just as management goals and external requirements. With that in mind, the following steps are taken in the process. The first step involves evaluation of the organization’s priorities. One should take time to put into perspective what objectives the organization has or its primary goals. This is important due to the fact that the performance measurement’s purpose is making progress aimed at attaining certain objectives supporting the overarching goals of the organization. For instance, in a report by the Institute of Medicine, six aims are described for healthcare improvement. They include; safety, timely service delivery, delivery of effective service, efficient resources use, equitability of service delivered and being customer oriented. The second step is choosing performance measures. To choose these measures for an organization, several crucial things should be put in mind. To start with, staff should be included in the process of measure selection. It should be clear to staff how the measures support their work. In the same breathe, they should find them meaningful as they will get involved in data collection that will mirror what they do. Secondly, the chosen measures should align with the organization’s goals, show relationship to favorable outcomes in health, be under control of health care system and are standardized reliable and valid. The third thing to observe is that established measures should be used. Measures developed and used by other organizations are most appropriate to ensure the above is met. For instance, measures endorsed by National Quality Forum (NQF) are widely recognized in the healthcare industry as they usually have undergone rigorous development processes. An organization can develop measures and send them to NQF for evaluation basing on standards determined through consensus processes with various stakeholders making input. For individual measures, NQF will describe its source, the numerator, denominator and the exclusions made. Fourthly, all available data sources should be used other than the data an organization has already collected using existing resources. Various measures should also be used. Process, outcome and structural measures when used in a mix provide a comprehensive view of an organization’s quality. The third step in the process is determining a baseline. After choosing the performance measures, existing data should be used in baseline determination for that measure. Baseline measures have to be established to serve as comparison basis when quality improvement changes are made. This helps in determining whether changes made actually contribute to quality improvement. The fourth step is evaluation of performance. Three methods are used here. These include percent compliance method, actual versus expected performance method and performance against a benchmark method. After the evaluation, the results should then be reported. During presentation of the results, the information should be tailored to different specific audiences so that it may be well understood. Reporting of the results internally is important so that staff get to be proud of the met targets and to be motivated where improvement needs to be done. External reporting to stakeholders is also desirable. The context of the measures should be explained to avoid misinterpretation. With the results at hand, the next step is developing plans and making changes for performance improvement. Finally, the performance has to be monitored over time. After one commences to monitor performance and makes changes for performance improvement in some areas, continued measurement of the effects of such changes would be crucial in determining if they had the impact intended. It would also ensure that they do not lead to unintended consequences in the area aimed at. Quality Measures Uses Quality measures have three major uses. To start with, they are used for quality improvement both within an institution and across institutions or care systems. Three basic steps are involved when using internal quality improvement measures. They include identification of opportunities for improvement, selection of the right measures for such areas, obtaining baseline assessments of present practice followed by re-measuring to examine improvement efforts’ impact on measure performance. Results for baseline quality measures can be employed to better understand quality problems, give motivation toward change and give a comparison basis over time across units. The results also facilitate prioritization of quality improvement areas. In external quality improvement, these measures are used in programs operated by national, state organizations or regional entities, quality improvement and accreditation organizations and also professional organizations. The results find audience in participating institutions. External agencies get involved in collecting performance measurement data, its accuracy verification and reporting of the results in a format allowing direct comparison among various organizations. ‘Benchmark’ results from external agencies can also be made available to be used to encourage the best performance. The second use of quality measures is in accountability in consumer decision making, payment variation relative to performance level or professional’s or organizations’ certification. The measures here, however, require higher validity and reliability in that each organization collects data just as the others do in a detailed standardized specification. This ensures for fair comparisons and for achievement of performance in predefined measures. In health sector, accountability data finds audience in healthcare purchasers, regulators, accrediting organizations and patients. They use the results for comparing health service providers or selecting them based on level of performance in some priority areas of service. This is very vital in consumer decision making through comparison of the institutions. It is also used in performance-based payment where bonuses are paid on top of scheduled fees for providers meeting defined benchmarks that may be relative or absolute. Also, the measures find use in professionals or organizations certification programs in healthcare sectors. These certifications are based on assessments in comparison to peers and also against set benchmarks. Finally, quality measures find use in research. The research helps in developing new knowledge in the healthcare system. For instance, quality-of-care research is usually done in evaluation of programs and assessing effects of change in policy in healthcare quality. Research also helps in assessing validity and reliability of quality measures Work Cited Ford, Emily. Defining and Characterizing Open Peer Review: A Review of the Literature. Journal of Scholarly Publishing, July 2013 doi: 10.3138/jsp.44-4-001. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Performance Management and Measurement. Retrieved 8 April 2014 from http://www.hrsa.gov/quality/toolbox/methodology/performancemanagement/part2.html U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Uses of Quality Measures. Retrieved 8 April 2014 from http://www.qualitymeasures.ahrq.gov/tutorial/using.aspx Read More