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Healthcare Management vocabulary · Quality and Accreditation

Benchmark

Meaning in healthcare management, with examples

/ˈbentʃmɑːrk/nounCommon term

In healthcare management, benchmark means: A standard or result, often from other hospitals or national data, that you compare your own performance with.

In Turkish: kıyaslama ölçütü, referans değer, kıyaslama

How it is used

Used as a noun and a verb: 'We benchmark our costs against similar hospitals.' Benchmarking helps managers see whether a figure is good or bad. Comparisons are only fair when hospitals are similar in size and case mix.

Example sentences

  1. Our infection rate is well below the national benchmark.

  2. We benchmark length of stay against twenty similar hospitals every quarter.

Common collocations

  • national benchmark
  • benchmark against
  • benchmarking data
  • set a benchmark
  • KPIShort for key performance indicator: a measurable value, such as waiting time or infection rate, that shows how well a hospital or team is meeting its goals.
  • quality improvementA planned, continuous effort to make care safer, more effective and more efficient by measuring results, testing changes and learning from them.
  • clinical outcomeThe effect of care on a patient's health, such as recovery, complications, quality of life or death, used to judge how well a treatment or service works.
  • length of stayThe number of days a patient spends in hospital from admission to discharge; the average across many patients is a key efficiency measure.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Quality and Accreditation

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This page explains English vocabulary for learners. It is not medical advice.