Facts and Figures from the German Health Care System
What it’s all about
With the help of the benchmarking technique, it is possible to determine how urgent improvements are for practice management in GP practices and where the starting points for this are.
Multidimensional insight
The benchmarking function of a practice management comparison makes it possible to depict the qualitative descriptions of the work of a medical practice in scale form and to compare them with objective and representative measured variables. In this way, it is possible not only to record the type and intensity of the regulations used to manage the practice, but also their effects, so that a kind of MRI picture of the practice’s work emerges. Key performance indicators (KPI) can be derived from the comparison.
The reference figure
The KPI „Best Practice Score“ (BPS) measures what proportion of those regulations, instruments and behaviours are implemented in a practice operation that ensure smooth functionality. The score thus shows the degree of activation of the management potential available to a GP or specialist practice, starting with planning and market research, through leadership, patient care, organisation, to self- and time management and controlling.
Call for action
A simple classification scheme helps to determine the urgency and the need for necessary corrections of the practice work in a first analysis step:
- if the BPS is above 80%, a near-optimal practice management performance has been achieved,
- between 60% and 80%, a practice is in Improvable status, i.e. several changes are necessary to bring the practice management to a best practice level; their implementation is recommended, but not urgent,
- in the range of 40% to 60%, the „Urgency-for-action“ status prevails, a large number of necessary adjustments should be tackled in the short term, as the efficiency and productivity of the practice work is clearly limited,
- a BPS below 40% describes the reconstruction status; with a score in this range, the practice management must be fundamentally rebuilt.
General practitioners in benchmarking
If one looks at the results of practice management benchmarking carried out in GP practices, for example, the average BPS is 45%, i.e. there is an urgent need for action in many practices. On average, the comparisons show almost fifty opportunities for improvement in this specialist group.
Further information
GPs, but also specialists, who would like to determine the extent of the call-for-action of their practices and learn about the corresponding adjustment measures, can use the IFABS Praxismanagement-Betriebsvergleich© for this purpose. The survey can be carried out without the need for an on-site consultant.
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