An in-depth performance study, implemented through functional benchmarking of a company’s internal processes, is part of a successful strategic analysis to identify potential development paths for an organization or department. The object of the study in this paper is the HIM Department of a hospital that is planning to develop an improved coding system. First of all, it is worth noting that the job of a specialist in this department is to manage medical information (Branda, 2018).
Since such data requires analytical accuracy and complete confidentiality, the coding system is a traditional tool for classification, logistics, and document identification. That said, this practice is not known to protect against intentional errors and inaccuracies due to data insufficiency, Upcoding, or material delivery issues (Nock, 2017). As a result, today’s hospital needs a seamless coding model that will meet the fundamental demands of accuracy, clarity, and error-free.
The HIM manager can use the concepts of successful benchmarking described in the proposed article to achieve these objectives. However, before embarking on the central part, the manager needs to determine what results of the change are expected and how such results might affect working practices. For example, if a benchmarking exercise reveals that the hospital needs to hire some coding staff, then it is essential to examine the financial benefits or losses of such a decision beforehand. Only a systematic approach to planning and monitoring can guarantee benchmarking success (Harper, 2019).
A complete analysis of the medical coding department should then be conducted to clarify the number of active employees, the number of documents turned around, the speed of operations, and the cost per employee per working hour: an average may need to be calculated. Once the data collection phase is complete, the manager conducts the main phase of benchmarking, which boils down to comparing established criteria with benchmarks published by reputable agencies. According to the text of the article, for HIM, these are AHIMA, AHA, or MGMA. For example, AHIMA shows that the standards for coding medical information in universal settings boil down to a figure of 9 graphs per hour (Hughes, 2003). When there is a significant gap between data, the HIM manager can build a strategy to implement change.
On the other hand, the selection of sources for comparison can be made among the competitive hospital by any of the known techniques: for instance, through successive reduction of the pool of competitors to a list of filtered companies (“Different types of benchmarking examples,” 2020). Personal visits to competitive medical organizations, interviews with former employees, or open data examination are acceptable. Although the focus of the study is an analysis of alternative coding procedures, the manager needs to gather as much outside information as possible, including not only unit headcount and productivity but also employee incentive models, compensation, and motivation systems. This data can be fundamentally helpful in retaining current employees and managing their productivity.
Once the analysis is complete, the HIM manager is ready to develop a strategy for adapting the changes, taking into account, however, the importance of working with employees. If the benchmarking shows that the hospital is performing worse with equal staffing levels, then the focus should be on employee motivation and training. The developed change plan is submitted to management for approval, after which the implementation phase begins. This, in turn, includes workshop and training sessions for training, periodic performance monitoring, and performance evaluation. It is expected that with each new change, the unit’s performance will increase, which means the quality of the coding system will eventually improve.
References
Branda, D. (2018). What is health information management? Where biz, tech & health meet. Southern New Hampshire University.
Different types of benchmarking examples. (2020). Indeed. Web.
Harper, M. (2019). What are the four types of benchmarking? APQC.
Hughes, G. (2003). Using Benchmarking for Performance Improvement (AHIMA Practice Brief), Journal of AHIMA 74(2), 64A-D.
Nock, B. (2017). 5 most common medical billing and coding errors. Gebauer Company.