Performance Reports/Dashboards

Performance reports are a valuable tool for gauging the financial well-being and progress of a health care organization. When properly designed, these reports can provide data on key measures, quality indicators, performance of operations, patient satisfaction, personnel, and facility capacity. 
Have you ever seen the cockpit of an airplane? The dashboard is covered with a variety of knobs and gauges. Having a pilot who understands the meaning of the data contained on the dashboard is essential for passenger safety and for reaching the correct destination in a timely fashion. Similarly, a dashboard for your organization can supply a wide variety of performance information to assist in the financial decision making process.

In this Discussion, you will describe a  dashboard that would be useful for you in your current position and organization (or one with which you are familiar).

To prepare:

• Review this week’s Media program, Dashboards.
• Consider your own organization (or one with which you are familiar) and the key information that would be useful for decision making.
• Develop a list of key performance indicators in the following categories that would be useful for your situation. Include:
  • 2–3 financial indicators
  • 2–3 operational indicators
  • 2–3 satisfaction indicators
  • 2–3 quality indicators

Required Readings

Baker, J. J., Baker, R. W., & Dworkin, N. R.  (2018). Health care finance: Basic  tools for nonfinancial managers (5th ed.). Burlington, MA: Jones and  Bartlett Learning.
Chapter 12, “Financial and Operating Ratios as Performance Measures” (pp. 127-134) 
This chapter introduces a number of different tools that can be used to measure the performance of an organization. These include liquidity ratios, solvency ratios, and profitability ratios.

Kleinpell, R. M. (2009). Analyzing economic outcomes in advanced practice learning. In Outcome assessment in advanced practice nursing (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Springer Publishing Company.
Outcome Assessment in Advanced Practice Nursing, 1st Edition by Kleinpell, R. M. Copyright 2009 by Springer Publishing Company. Reprinted by permission of Springer Publishing Company via the Copyright Clearance Center.

This chapter outlines five different types of economic outcomes that can be used by advanced practice nurses for assessing costs and determining performance benefits within a health care organization.

Serb, C. (2011). Effective dashboards: What to measure and how to show it. Hospitals & Health Networks, 85(6), 40. 
Retrieved from the Walden Library databases.

In this article, the authors discuss automated systems known as executive dashboards, which are designed to highlight key data. Additionally, the article describes the components most experts agree should be included on an executive dashboard.