Benchmarking management practices in Australian public healthcare

Healthcare payor management practices are associated with health system performance and population health

Good management practice has long been seen as critical to improving the performance, quality, and efficiency of healthcare systems. Better hospital management practice has been shown to correlate with improved clinical quality and performance. However, the association between the management practices of healthcare payors, the performance of the healthcare systems they oversee, and the health of their managed populations, has not been explored quantitatively. We collected data for all 152 healthcare payors and 53 million residents in England to explore the relationships between payor management practices and the performance of the healthcare system each payor managed. First, we found that better healthcare payor management practices are associated with improved health system performance in the domains of quality and value for money, and with improvements in the overall health and well-being of the managed population. Second, we found better payor management practice is associated with improvements in specific outcome metrics related to healthcare system effectiveness, safety, and value for money. Finally, we found no association between payor management practices and metrics for patient experience and access. These findings provide the first known quantitative evidence of a link between healthcare payor management practice and health system performance. They may also help both governments and payors themselves understand what healthcare system performance improvements might be possible from improving the management practices of healthcare payors.

Measuring healthcare payor management practices in England

Good management practice in healthcare payors and providers is considered central to ensuring health systems respond to population needs, contain costs, and improve both quality and outcomes. However, the evidence to support this assertion is sparce. While a quantitative link between better management practice and improved patient outcomes has been demonstrated for healthcare providers, no such link has been identified for healthcare payors. The lack of a robust tool to assess the management practices of healthcare payors has impeded such quantitative assessments. We report upon a novel tool developed to measure and assess 11 management practices in all 152 healthcare payors within England's National Health Service in 2010. We have tested the acceptability, reliability and validity of this tool using rigorous analytic methods and present four key findings. First, performance of the tool is strong and comparable to management practice scorecards used in other settings. Second, exploratory factor analysis indicates the tool measures two distinct latent factors of healthcare payor management practice with high internal consistency and reliability. Third, there is evidence of assessment and score validity. Fourth, payor management practice variations are associated with the degree of supervisory oversight. While deploying such a tool is challenging, these results suggest that healthcare payor management practices can be measured and assessed robustly. This could enable governments, and others, to identify how payor management practices influence health system performance and to estimate what health system performance improvements they should expect from interventions designed to improve the management practices of their local healthcare payors.

A qualitative study of hospital clinical staff perceptions of their interactions with healthcare middle managers

PURPOSE

The authors explored clinical staff perceptions of their interactions with middle management and their experiences of the uncongeniality of their working environment.

DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH

Semi-structured interviews of clinical staff from an Australian public health service's Emergency, Surgery and Psychiatry departments. Volunteer interview transcripts were inductively coded using a reflexive thematic content analysis.

FINDINGS

Of 73 interviews, 66 participants discussed their interactions with management. Most clinicians considered their interactions with middle management to be negative based on a violation of their expectations of support in the workplace. Collectively, these interactions formed the basis of clinical staff perceptions of management's lack of capacity and fit for the needs of staff to perform their roles.

PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS

Strategies to improve management's fit with clinicians' needs may be beneficial for reducing uncongenial workplaces for healthcare staff and enhanced patient care.

ORIGINALITY/VALUE

This article is among the few papers that discuss interactions with management from the perspective of clinical staff in healthcare. How these perspectives inform the perception of workplace uncongeniality for clinicians contributes greater understanding of the factors contributing to adversarial relationships between clinicians and managers.

Quality management in Human Milk Banks: a scope review

ABSTRACT Objectives: to identify the main quality management interventions used by professionals working at Human Milk Banks. Methods: a scope review conducted at PubMed, VHL, Scopus, SciELO, CAPES thesis and Google Scholar databases. Primary studies were included that address quality improvement strategies to improve Milk Bank processes in Portuguese, English and Spanish. Results: search totaled 192 scientific studies, 17 of which met the objective of the study and inclusion criteria. The main quality management interventions used in the Human Milk Bank addressed tools for continuous improvement. Six were aimed at improving processes, one to prevent errors and failures and two to achieve continuous monitoring. Final Considerations: the tools used by professionals working in Human Milk Banks have demonstrated effectiveness in managing the quality of services.

Evidence-based management - healthcare manager viewpoints

Purpose Hospital manager decisions can have a significant impact on service effectiveness and hospital success, so using an evidence-based approach can improve hospital management. The purpose of this paper is to identify evidence-based management (EBMgt) components and challenges. Consequently, the authors provide an improving evidence-based decision-making framework. Design/methodology/approach A total of 45 semi-structured interviews were conducted in 2016. The authors also established three focus group discussions with health service managers. Data analysis followed deductive qualitative analysis guidelines. Findings Four basic themes emerged from the interviews, including EBMgt evidence sources (including sub-themes: scientific and research evidence, facts and information, political-social development plans, managers' professional expertise and ethical-moral evidence); predictors (sub-themes: stakeholder values and expectations, functional behavior, knowledge, key competencies and skill, evidence sources, evidence levels, uses and benefits and government programs); EBMgt barriers (sub-themes: managers' personal characteristics, decision-making environment, training and research system and organizational issues); and evidence-based hospital management processes (sub-themes: asking, acquiring, appraising, aggregating, applying and assessing). Originality/value Findings suggest that most participants have positive EBMgt attitudes. A full evidence-based hospital manager is a person who uses all evidence sources in a six-step decision-making process. EBMgt frameworks are a good tool to manage healthcare organizations. The authors found factors affecting hospital EBMgt and identified six evidence sources that healthcare managers can use in evidence-based decision-making processes.

Management practices in Australian healthcare: can NSW public hospitals do better?

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to investigate the determinants of best management practices in an Australian state-run healthcare system, namely New South Wales (NSW), and studies the impact of a range of hospital factors in driving best management practices as a means of enhancing healthcare delivery.

Design/methodology/approach

– This study adapts a unique survey instrument globally tested to quantify the multi-dimensional nature of hospital management practices in 42 acute care public hospitals of NSW. The authors then analysed the role of hospital-specific characteristics in driving best management practices, namely hospital size (measured by the number of hospital beds, employees and doctors), level of skill and education, degree of hospital manager autonomy and organisational hierarchy.

Findings

– The findings of this study show the areas of strength and potential areas of improvement in NSW hospitals. The authors find a positive association between the adoption of better management practices and hospital size (measured by the number of hospital beds and employees), level of skills and education, degree of hospital manager autonomy and organisational hierarchy. However, hospital size as measured by the number of doctors did not have a statistically significant relationship.

Practical implications

– This paper is of interest to both hospital administrators, clinical doctors and healthcare policy-makers who want to improve and develop strategies for better management in the healthcare sector.

Originality/value

– This study provides an internationally comparable robust measure of management capability in public hospitals, and contributes to the evidence-base of management practices and performance in hospitals.