Health managers assume the complexity of defining, in quantitative terms, what makes a medical or nursing professional “good”. Is it the number of patients you see? The complexity of assistance? Or the time you have to dedicate to an intervention? “These are measures with which subjectivity or lack of precision can be incurred,” acknowledge the sources consulted by Medical Writing, which nevertheless confirm the possibility of extracting and comparing data and reliable indicators of the performance of a worker. Among them, the clinical resultsthe effectiveness of care and the patient experience.
Jon Guajardosecond vice-president of the Spanish Society of Health Managers (Sedisa), points out in this sense that the services tend to measure the care activity itself, an indicator that “may be more or less effective” with which puts the focus not only on what is done is “adequate” but also “efficient”. He also adds the managing director of the Barrualde-Galdakao Integrated Health Organization (OSI) that this may be the basis of a “common language” to determine the performance of a doctor or a nurse.
However, he stresses that the job of a toilet does not lie only in his “productivity”. “It must be taken into account that this activity is the best possible to solve the problem health of a specific patient”, emphasizes the manager, who gives an example of the case of a surgeon who operates a lot and very well but not with the appropriate indication”.
To all this is added the “patient perception” increasingly located in the center of care activity. In the words of Guajardo, “we must continue working on this concept” to prevent a user from feeling “dissatisfied” both in the treatment and in the information or care they receive. “At the Galdakao OSI we are trying to collect all this information to have a new variable to measure”, he highlights.
“Difficulty” to measure the performance of a professional
Guajardo stresses that there are spaces in which it is “easier” to measure a health action. In an operating room, for example, it can be determined how long it has been used and the number of interventions. However, he stresses that “it is not easy” to specify these indicators on an individual scale.
A point of view that you share with mercedes ferrovice president of the National Association of Nursing Directors (ANDE), who assumes that this type of measurement “may end up being inaccurate”, especially in trades with characteristics such as those of Nursing. In this regard, he explains that the performance of these professionals “is the result of a continuity of care of people” in which factors of various kinds are involved “and that are difficult to detail quantitatively.
According to Ferro, there are “indirect indicators” that can outline the personal quality of a health professional, such as the people he sees in a day or even his research or teaching projection. Beyond that, she stresses that a “good nurse” has to “make variable and effective management decisions” to resolve each case. “Behind that there is an invisible effort that not summarized in data”, he points out.
In this sense, he regrets the “little custom” that exists in Spain when it comes to “recognize good practice of the professionals”. But you should take into account not only what is done but how it is done”, he says.
Although it may contain statements, data or notes from health institutions or professionals, the information contained in Redacción Médica is edited and prepared by journalists. We recommend to the reader that any health-related questions be consulted with a health professional.