the usage of Balanced Scorecard in hospitals

Literature Review

This review of literature attempts to focus on the use of a balanced scorecard in the hospital setting , although the basic principle of the balance scorecard as utilized by Drs Kaplan and Norton will be elucidated . Through the databases of MEDSCAPE , PUBMED and GOOGLE SCHOLAR , articles are chosen via their relevance to the study . Keywords utilized included balanced scorecard , healthcare and hospital performance measure and balanced scorecard in hospitals

The Balanced Scorecard

The balanced scorecard is a management system developed by Drs Kaplan and Norton in to mobilize

employees to fulfill organizational mission (Kaplan Norton 1996 . The balanced scorecard methodology builds on the CSF concept of a limited , coherent set of performance measures related to tactical objectives , and add the concept of balance among indicators . The balanced scorecard framework presents a management team with four different perspectives from which to choose performance indicators : a customer perspective , an internal perspective , a financial perspective , and an innovation perspective . The balanced scorecard does not require the top-down approach advocated in the CSF technique

Geiger and Gordon (1999 ) notes that in the balanced scorecard methodology a management team , at any level , selects a limited set of performance indicators that are meaningful to them in each quadrant . The process of selecting and agreeing on measures forces the management team to define what is strategically significant . Forcing the management team to choose measures from each perspective obliges it to consider objectives from every viewpoint , not just with the typical financial bias . The Balanced Scorecard complements financial measures of past performance with measures of the drivers of future performance . The objectives and measures of the scorecard are derived from an organization 's vision and strategy . The objectives and measures view organizational performance from four perspectives : financial , customer internal business process , and learning and growth . These four perspectives provide the framework for the Balanced Scorecard (Kaplan Norton 1996

The Learning Growth Perspective

This perspective includes employee training and corporate cultural attitudes related to both individual and corporate self-improvement . In a knowledge-worker organization , people -- the only repository of knowledge -- are the main resource . In the current climate of rapid technological change , it is becoming necessary for knowledge workers to be in a continuous learning mode . Government agencies often find themselves unable to hire new practical workers , and at the same time there is a decline in training of existing employees . This is a leading indicator of 'brain drain ' that must be reversed . Metrics can be put into place to guide administrator in focusing training funds where they can help the most . In any case , learning and growth constitute the essential foundation for accomplishment of any knowledge-worker association

Kaplan and Norton emphasize that 'learning ' is more than 'training it also includes things like mentors and tutors within the organization , as well as that ease of communication among workers that enable them to readily get help on a problem when it is needed . It also includes technological tools what the Baldrige criteria call "high performance work...