KPI's - Is Managing the KPIs Enough?

At the macro level of an organization, dashboards are used as summaries of the most important metrics or KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) for the facility. Every operation or initiative must be quantifiable, otherwise an organization is left guessing and that is a dangerous strategy. A quick look at the KPI can give some insight into how a particular organization or facility is doing. However, it is important to note that KPIs alone are not sufficient to understand the path forward.

As consultants, it is easy to identify the negative variances between budgeted expectations and actual outcomes. Obvious advice consists of the general strategies that historically work with a given KPI. In doing so, you can miss out on effective and long-lasting change because while there are patterns in disparities, you must also consider the KPI within the context of the culture because after all, the results will depend upon the people that carry them out.

There is no KPI without people doing the work just as there is no measure of the work without the KPI. The people and the KPI must be considered simultaneously when devising the plan. As example, lets consider a KPI in the admissions department; number and reason for deflections. A good action-plan could be to create a "tree" to staff the potential deflections with the Administrator. However, if the Administrator does not have a clinical background or has very little experience with level of care recommendations/medical necessity criteria then this would not be an effective plan. If the Administrator did have expertise/experience in staffing and medical necessity criteria, then this plan can be very effective.

Failing to understand the range and limitations of a team or facility is a good way to create an erroneous plan. Managing KPIs is a good way to start understdaning performance, as long as you do it in context of the pieces that are managing it. The answer must also be created to cosider the natural tendencies of those who will be responsible for them.