Managing productivity, performance, and the cost of services

Productivity, especially labor productivity, is an important component of the information needed by healthcare managers to set goals, make decisions, and act. To measure productivity, standards must be established and performance determined. A basic problem with productivity monitoring has been that standards have been perceived as absolute and short term. A standard can, however, represent a more long-term labor efficiency target that reflects a general improvement in the current level of efficiency in a timeframe that is reasonable to the manager.