title: [Performance indicators for hospitals].
abstract: A good performance indicator reflects the quality of care and uses clinical outcomes. When outcomes are difficult to obtain, process and structure variables can provide a good picture of quality of care. A single performance indicator for the entire hospital is unattainable; efforts should focus on performance indicators for specific disorders. There are limitations to the use of performance indicators to compare hospitals; these include correction for case mix, the statistical reliability of the measurements and the validation of performance indicators. Well-considered performance indicators can be used to monitor trends and identify providers that perform below a certain benchmark, but not to rank them.
authors.affiliation: Universitair Medisch Centrum Utrecht, Afd. Cardio-Thoracale Chirurgie, Utrecht, the Netherlands. s.siregar@umcutrecht.nl
authors.forename: Sabrina
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Siregar
authors.forename: Rolf H H
authors.initials: RH
authors.lastname: Groenwold
authors.forename: Michel  J M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Versteegh
authors.forename: Lex A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: van Herwerden
mesh_terms: D019985:Benchmarking; D006302:Health Services Research; D006761:Hospitals / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D009426:Netherlands; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care; D019984:Quality Indicators, Health Care