Performance Measurement Indicators in the Healthcare Industry: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Objectives: The purpose of this study is to explore and investigate the types of employee performance measurement systems applied in healthcare services and assess their efficiency in providing accurate measurement of the performance of healthcare workers across the various job types with focus on performance indicators to measure soft skills. Study Design and Methodology: A systematic search in discipline specific databases included PsychInfo, Medline, ABI/Inform, and Business Source Elite; and in multidisciplinary databases included Academic Search Elite, Health and Psychosocial Instruments, ProQuest, and Science Direct. The used search terms were “employee performance indicators”, “employee performance appraisal”, and “healthcare”. The search was limited to publications in English language without any restrictions on year of publication. The search was supplemented with an independent manual search of references of relevant studies and bibliographies of review articles. Results: A total of 23 articles met the inclusion criteria. Articles were classified into 3 categories: Performance measurement systems and programs comprise of 10 studies, evaluation and development of measuring tools includes 7 studies, and problems and gaps of measuring performance of medical practitioners included 6 studies. Majority of the studies (65.22%), 15 studies, are healthcare related. Conclusions: There was wide diversity in the applicable methods. However, there appears to be no comprehensive approach to performance evaluation in healthcare. The systematic review of published literature does not provide or identify a clear solution to the weakness of applicable employee performance appraisal systems in healthcare organizations. There is a literature gap in covering performance measurement systems for non-medical employees working in healthcare organizations and in discussing performance indicators for soft skills. The findings have supported the statement of problem and provided direction for future research that is needed to address the existing gap in performance measurement literature and contribute to evidence-informed decision-making in healthcare performance management.