title: Designing a balanced scorecard for a tertiary care hospital in Pakistan: a modified Delphi group exercise.
abstract: Balanced Scorecards (BSC) are being implemented in high income health settings linking organizational strategies with performance data. At this private university hospital in Pakistan an elaborate information system exists. This study aimed to make best use of available data for better performance management. Applying the modified Delphi technique an expert panel of clinicians and hospital managers reduced a long list of indicators to a manageable size. Indicators from existing documents were evaluated for their importance, scientific soundness, appropriateness to hospital's strategic plan, feasibility and modifiability. Panel members individually rated each indicator on a scale of 1-9 for the above criteria. Median scores were assigned. Of an initial set of 50 indicators, 20 were finally selected to be assigned to the four BSC quadrants. These were financial (n = 4), customer or patient (n = 4), internal business or quality of care (n = 7) and innovation/learning or employee perspectives (n = 5). A need for stringent definitions, international benchmarking and standardized measurement methods was identified. BSC compels individual clinicians and managers to jointly work towards improving performance. This scorecard is now ready to be implemented by this hospital as a performance management tool for monitoring indicators, addressing measurement issues and enabling comparisons with hospitals in other settings.
authors.affiliation: Department of Community Health Sciences, Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan. fauziah.rabbani@aku.edu
authors.forename: Fauziah
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Rabbani
authors.forename: Syed M Wasim
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Jafri
authors.forename: Farhat
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Abbas
authors.forename: Mairaj
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Shah
authors.forename: Syed Iqbal
authors.initials: SI
authors.lastname: Azam
authors.forename: Babar Tasneem
authors.initials: BT
authors.lastname: Shaikh
authors.forename: Mats
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Brommels
authors.forename: Goran
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Tomson
mesh_terms: D019985:Benchmarking / Q000458:organization & administration*; D003697:Delphi Technique; D006777:Hospitals, Proprietary / Q000592:standards*; D006785:Hospitals, University / Q000592:standards*; D010154:Pakistan; D019984:Quality Indicators, Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration