Measuring Productivity
Measuring productivity is vital to optimizing economic outputs in the healthcare industry with low productivity impacting a healthcare facility’s ability to function and support the economy in meaningful ways. Keep reading to learn more about how to improve productivity in your facility.
Healthcare is a main pillar of the U.S. economy, accounting for 19.7% of the national gross domestic product (GDP) in 2020. Nonetheless, healthcare does not always have a significant contribution to national economic growth with many factors playing a role in this discrepancy. Some of these factors include market irregularities, U.S. healthcare infrastructure peculiarities and regulatory requirements. Despite this, one factor a healthcare practice can control is its productivity measures.
The Importance of Measuring Productivity
Measuring productivity allows you to find the areas of your facility that are operating smoothly and efficiently and those that could use improvement. Doing so helps you:
- Focus on long-term growth rather than short-term productivity gains that may undermine operations.
- Identify specific opportunities to control healthcare spending growth in ways that support the economy and patient outcomes.
- Deliver higher quality services while spending less on non-essential expenses.
In short, measuring productivity enables you to increase productivity to achieve positive outcomes. In healthcare settings, positive outcomes may involve continued medical advances, staying on top of service demands and improving affordability for patients.
However, measuring productivity is not as straightforward as it may seem, as the methods you use to measure productivity also matter.
Traditional Measurement Methods
Traditional productivity measuring methods focus on hard metrics like time and financials. These hard metrics emphasize human capital and labor production rather than the services delivered. When seen through these measures, solid productivity in a healthcare setting is a matter of lower costs and quicker services.
Time metrics evaluate such factors as the following
- The time needed to care for patients and complete each case
- The number of patients doctors treat per day
- The time healthcare employees spend with each patient
The financial healthcare productivity metrics look at
- Employee labor costs: Financial metrics assess positions essential to patient care and those that provide supplemental benefits. Maximizing productivity in this area may involve redistributing wages, culling staff or exploring casual and temporary hires.
- Amount of overtime pay given: Sometimes overtime hours are necessary, such as when treating a patient in an emergency takes providers past closing hours. Other times, overtime hours are less critical, such as staying after hours to complete paperwork or spending too much time with each patient.
- Supply and equipment costs: Financial metrics weigh the benefit and expense of each medical device the clinic or hospital uses. State-of-the-art devices may be expensive, but their benefit may provide a worthwhile return on the investment. Conversely, a clinic or hospital may opt for the bare essentials to cut expenses. Other considerations include keeping enough medications on hand to meet patient demand.
- Other expenses: Electrical, heating, water and other utility bills are necessary to provide adequate patient care. Still, finding ways to cut back on these expenses increases financial productivity.
The traditional methods of measuring healthcare productivity are quantitative rather than qualitative. A clinic may reduce open hours or hire only essential staff to maximize productivity. Doctors may also prioritize brevity when seeing patients, making quick decisions and only pushing for more details when significant concerns arise.
By focusing on time and financials, traditional methods focus on patient volume rather than the patients themselves, their needs and satisfaction with their care. Likewise, by disregarding patient satisfaction, these methods answer only half of the question of productivity. Decreased patient satisfaction can undermine such productivity methods.
Take Action
Measuring productivity is vital to your organization on a high level, get in touch with Pathstone today to start monitoring your overall productivity and explore how we can increase your bottom line.
