In the fast-paced world of private healthcare, staying ahead of the curve is vital for success. With ever-increasing demands on healthcare professionals, understanding and managing your practice’s performance is crucial. This is where Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) come into play.
What are KPIs?
KPIs are a selection of quantifiable metrics that allow you to evaluate your practice’s performance and track progress towards specific goals. They are the compass guiding your decisions, enhancing patient care, and streamlining business operations.
Why Are KPIs Vital for Your Practice?
By defining KPIs you are creating an opportunity for understanding and growth. One massive benefit of using practice management software like PPS is that you have access to a wealth of data at your fingertips. By just using software to manage your clinic, you automatically collect the data needed to produce KPIs, so why let it go to waste?
KPIs can help you to implement business strategies, identify areas of improvement and predict future client behaviour, patterns or trends.
Where to begin
If you are using software or any other digital method of recording your practice data, you are already off to a great start! Simply by keeping a digital appointment diary, you are already capturing all of the information that you would need to be able to output the data for a multitude of KPIs, including DNA rates, patient retention and diary occupancy.
So when it comes to defining which KPIs you would like to measure, where do you begin?
The most obvious place to start would be with your current business plan or goals, this will form the basis of your KPI strategy and tell you what data is needed to track progress. You can also look at industry standards or competitor metrics to give you an idea of what to focus on.
Are your KPIs viable?
When you have an initial list, you should test out the viability of each of your options. Let’s have a quick run-through of some of the additional considerations which may shape the choices you make when it comes to your KPIs
After your business goals, the two most important factors are going to be data availability and achievable outcomes.
In order to produce KPIs, you need access to a good set of data. Think about the data that you already record and whether it is going to provide you with valuable insights. If you are not already collecting the data that you need to get the KPI you are looking for, it’s worth considering what methods could be used to get that data for the future and if the exercise is going to be time and cost-effective.
Once you have ascertained where your data is coming from, take some time to think about what you will do with the results. The purpose of KPIs is to equip you with the insight needed to progress your business and so it should be within your capacity to react to that information accordingly.
Let’s take revenue growth as an example of a KPI, you’ve run the reports, you have the data, what do you do next?
If you would like to increase your revenue growth, you will need to implement a plan that will help you to reach your goal. This will likely mean some tangible changes will need to take place such as price increases, additional services, more stock items, reduced expenditure, the list goes on… So before deciding upon which KPIs to monitor, it is imperative to ensure that you and your business are in a position to react to the result and that the potential outcomes are achievable.
Other considerations you will need to keep in mind include:
- Time periods
- Privacy and Compliance
- Benchmarking
- Balance
- Long-term perspective
For a more detailed look at these factors, check out our FREE workshop on understanding KPIs.
Basic KPI framework
For each of your KPIs, you can follow this basic framework:
1. Define the KPI
Use your business plan or goals to determine your KPIs
2. Determine the data source
Identify where the data you need is stored and how/if you can easily extract it
3. Set a time frame
Define the period of time over which you would like to measure the KPI e.g. weekly, monthly, annually etc.
4. Gather and calculate the data
Source the data needed and export accordingly
5. Calculate the KPI
Most KPIs have an applicable formula that will help you to output your report results as easily readable metrics like percentages
6. Analyse the results
Are you on track towards your goals? How do the results match up to your benchmarks? Is there a need to further break down the data in order to understand the implications of the KPI?
7. Take action
Make any necessary changes to ensure that you continue to progress towards your goals
8. Review
KPIs should be regularly monitored to give you a full picture
Understanding what your KPIs are telling you
Once you have your KPIs in place and you are regularly outputting the data like a pro, the next step is to analyse the results.
It’s easy to take the data at face value, especially when it looks positive. Looking at diary occupancy as a KPI example; your diary is 90% full each month, fantastic work! Do you just leave it there?
Or, can you take this as an opportunity to really look at that data to make sure that you are not:
- Turning business away because you don’t have enough availability
- Subjecting returning customers to long wait times for their next appointment
- Ignoring periods of downturn if they are shortlived enough to not make a blip on your reports
Although this approach might seem like it focuses on identifying potential negatives, what it is actually doing is adding context and value to the basic numerical output that you are starting with.
The key takeaway here is that by analysing the data, you can identify areas of weakness or potential and form strategies that will keep you on the right path towards your goals.
Four KPI groups for private healthcare professionals
Here are 4 groups of KPIs that could have a meaningful impact on your business:
1. Patient Satisfaction
- Patient retention
- Referrals
2. Revenue Growth
- Profit margins
- Clinic expenditure
3. Appointment scheduling and availability
- DNA rate
- Diary occupancy
4. Staff Productivity
- Patient wait times
- Average appointment duration
These are just a few examples, all of which are easily attainable using PPS.
If you’ve enjoyed this blog, why not check out our free KPI webinar, you can watch it here:
These are just a few examples, all of which are easily attainable using PPS.
If you’ve enjoyed this blog, why not check out our free KPI webinar, you can watch it here:
If you are on our mailing list you’ll also get some more help and guidance over the coming weeks as we’ll be sending out some emails that focus on different aspects of building your KPI strategy, including GDPR, how to use PPS reports and how to book your free training session.
If you’d like to join our mailing list, please email sales@rushcliff.com
