Facts and Figures from the German Health Care System
What it’s all about
Laboratory values are an essential basis for medical patient care. But professional practice management is also inconceivable without their business counterpart, the key performance indicators.
Various uses
With their reference ranges and decision limits, laboratory values are used for diagnostics and the classification of diseases into degrees of severity across all disciplines. In addition, they are used for course and therapy controls, but also for prevention and for determining or assessing risk factors.
Also applicable for the evaluation of practice management
The laboratory values for practice management are the key performance indicators (KPI). These are parameters that result from the comparison (benchmarking) of the practice management data of a practice with objective and representative measured variables. For this purpose, with the help of structured analysis questionnaires (doctor/doctors), MFA, patients and, if applicable, referring physicians, the design of the practice management is first described and made measurable in the later evaluation by means of scaling. In this way, it is not only possible to record the type and intensity of the regulations used for practice management, but also their effects and impact relationships (return on management).
Key performance indicators (KPI),
- solve the problem of the complexity of practice management by generating orientation variables,
- make it possible to determine the actual state of practice management without great effort and
- at the same time identify strengths, but also deficits as well as unused opportunities and risk factors.
With the results of this initial analysis, concrete target parameters for the practice work can be defined and monitored and controlled in a simple but comprehensive way by means of follow-up examinations.
An example: The Teamwork Quality Score (TQS)
If the assessments of the practice staff on the quality of collaboration are put in relation to the best practice standard, i.e. the basic requirements for optimally functioning collaboration, an assessment of the collaboration quality of the staff can be derived from the resulting Teamwork Quality Score (TQS). This information is essential to determine the status of efficiency and productivity and to be able to initiate changes if necessary. The following criteria apply:
TQS > 80%: Team
Teamwork is characterised by common goals, largely autonomous task completion, mutual complementation and support, as well as self-direction to solve problems and self-initiated measures to improve work results.
TQS > 60% to <= 80%: Community
It is a mix of the characteristics of the group and the team, but still lacks crucial aspects in the collaboration to achieve a full synergy of cooperation that make up the productivity and efficiency of a team.
TQS > 40% to <= 60%: Group
Cooperation that falls into this range is characterised by a low synergy of individual activities: people work together, but always only within the framework that is given. Individual initiative or helping out with problems are rather rare. Moreover, cooperation is often characterised by unresolved conflicts. Although every medical assistant strives to do their job well, there is no sustained commitment to continuous improvement.
TQS 0 to <= 40% Special-purpose association
Here, work performance is characterised by „duty by the book“ and „lone wolf“ behaviour.
Simple and fast to the lab report
GPs and specialists who want to determine the laboratory values of their practice management can use the Practice Management Comparison© for this purpose. The validated examination, which can be carried out without the need for an on-site consultant, requires only thirty minutes of medical working time and identifies an average of forty suggestions for improving practice work.
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