Healthcare Benchmarking

As a healthcare leader, have you ever wondered how your hospital is actually performing? Compared to peers, is your organization overperforming or underperforming – and why does it matter?

Healthcare organizations aim to achieve excellence across clinical practice, financial and operational performance, and quality assurance. When hospitals meet or exceed these standards, patients receive better care, staff operate at full capacity, and equipment is fully utilized. These organizations gain market share and increase financial returns by delivering higher-quality care, which can be lifesaving.

The role of leadership is to provide both efficiency and quality. When those elements are executed well, the hospital becomes a patient’s partner of choice. But how does each facility compare their results with those of their peers? Limited data is available, especially in emerging markets.

There is a need for insights into performance. Many healthcare facilities are “flying blind,” relying only on their internal data without insight into how they truly measure up. This is where Healthcare Benchmarking comes in, providing transparency and a window into performance on various measures. It compels hospitals to ask why they are performing at a given level.

Recognizing this need for industry benchmarks, IFC piloted its Healthcare Benchmarking initiative in 2022. The following year, the team extended a global call for performance data, which was met with tremendous response. In 2023, 50 companies operating 162 healthcare facilities across 32 countries participated. In an industry where performance information is often closely guarded, the insights gained have been groundbreaking.

Key Performance Indicators

Healthcare organizations are diverse and complex. IFC’s benchmarking data covers four main categories: finance, operations, quality assurance, surgical, and clinical practice. The unique dataset of 185 carefully selected global performance measures was designed to provide invaluable insights to help organizations deliver better healthcare and cost controls.

Participating companies supplied their data on a confidential basis. These results were compared with data from 143 international healthcare companies, most publicly listed, operating in the US and Europe. In total, the dataset exceeded 25,000 data points, allowing each organization to benchmark itself against a broad range of indicators.

A Few Examples

• Financial: revenue profile, cost profile, sample prices, profitability ratios.
• Operational: staffing levels, asset utilization including number of beds, ICU, ORs, radiology, radiotherapy, dialysis.
• Quality: 19 carefully selected indicators including mortality rates, infection rates, and preventable patient harm.
• Day Case Metrics: 18 common procedures recognized as having increased day surgery potential such as general surgery, gynecology, urology, or pediatric surgery.

Results

The response has been universally positive, and companies have already been using the analysis for purposes including:

• Targeted cost savings
• HR/staff planning
• Zero-based budgeting
• Evidence-based investment planning
• Performance dashboard design
• Increased patient numbers

How to Partner with IFC

IFC plans to run the next healthcare benchmarking exercise in 2025.

We invite interested parties to join the benchmarking program by contacting IFC at ifc_healthcare@ifc.org