Role of Benchmarks in Quality Improvement Activities

Benchmarks
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Benchmarks
Benchmarks play an integral role in the delivery of healthcare as they help healthcare organizations improve their processes and performance to meet the best practices in the sector. In this sense, benchmarks inspire practice to engage in improvement activities and help healthcare professionals understand where performance is lacking in comparison to others (AHRQ, n.d.). Given this role, it is deducible that benchmarks help healthcare organizations engage in healthy competition for the benefit of the healthcare sector.
It is vital for an organization to identify appropriate benchmarks in order for an organization to compare its practice and performance against them. As informed by Ettorchi-Tardy, Levif, and Michel (2012), for an organization to implement benchmarking, it is important that it seeks reliable, useful, and up-to-date information. By engaging in information management, an organization can seek out relevant data that accelerates and facilitates the benchmarking process. Through inter-organiza...