Team Application: Balanced Scorecards

Leaders within health care often use a balanced scorecard to help monitor the state of their organization. In order to be an effective management tool, a scorecard must include the most important indicators of an organization's status, while not being so lengthy as to be overwhelming.

For this Team Application, you and your team members will review a scenario about a hypothetical health care organization and analyze its balanced scorecard. Using your team's dedicated discussion forum, you and your team members will critique this scorecard by answering questions in Part 1 and Part 2, below.

Scenario: West Central Hospital

West Central Hospital is a major teaching hospital that operates intern and residency programs, and is a member of a multihospital health care system. The hospital is located in the suburbs, and its community has new building construction, moderate population growth, and aging and pediatric populations that are increasing.

This hospital has these additional features:

410 licensed beds for general acute care, but only 370 operating (staffed) beds
Annual admissions of about 30,000
An emergency department with approximately 90,000 annual visits
A case mix index of about 1.15

Among the services it provides are:

Both inpatient and outpatient rehabilitative (physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech language pathology) services
Behavioral health services
A neonatal intensive care unit
All other ancillary and support services expected of such a hospital

The hospital is currently using a Balanced Scorecard for West Central Hospital. One of West Central Hospital's administrators asks your team to analyze and critique their scorecard and provide them with suggestions. Specific questions are provided below.

Complete the following as a team:

Following a schedule developed by your team, complete the following through collaborative work. Use your team discussion forum and any other methods of communication (such as e-mail, or phone or video conferencing) chosen by the team for your collaboration.

In a 4- to 6-page paper, address Parts 1 and 2:

Part 1: Individual Metrics

As a team, select four metrics, each from a different category, to analyze further. For each of these four metrics, complete the following:

Identify and define the respective numerator, denominator and rate/ratio.
Review and interpret the trended data. What do the data, and their trends, tell you about this particular aspect of the hospital?
Suggest a likely type of database or data source for each metric (this can be from internal and/or external sources).
Suggest actions that management could take to improve outcomes associated with the metric.

Part 2: Overall Scorecard and Monitoring a Strategic Goal

Based on this scorecard, which areas of the organization seem to be doing well, and which ones are most in need of improvement? What are your grounds for concluding this? Summarize what these scorecard indicators say about this organization in comparison with its peer organizations (e.g., the Custom Compare Group).

Consider the selection of metrics for this scorecard. Do you think this scorecard will provide managers and administrators with a balanced view of the organization's performance? Explain why or why not. Suggest adding and/or deleting any metrics and provide a rationale for doing so.

Review the scenario and consider these details in connection with the scorecard data. Propose a significant, yet plausible strategic goal for this organization. Then identify 2-3 metrics the organization should focus on to help them meet this goal. Are these metrics in the scorecard already? If so, which ones are they? If not, which metrics would you add to the scorecard to help leadership monitor this strategic goal?