Perceptions and use of performance measures by hospital pharmacy directors

The extent to which hospital pharmacy directors use and value specific pharmacy department performance measures was studied. Questionnaires were mailed to pharmacy directors at 834 randomly selected hospitals. The questionnaires contained a list of seven data collection methods and 32 financial, 25 productivity, and 9 quality assurance measures obtained from a review of the literature. Respondents were asked to indicate familiarity, perception of usefulness, and current use of each method or measure. Perception of usefulness was measured on a five-point scale (1 = not useful, 5 = very useful). Respondents were also asked if the measures were requested by hospital administration or an external consultant. The overall response rate was 24.1%. Less than 30% of the respondents indicated that they used any of the data collection methods; however, the mean value for perceived usefulness was higher than 3 for almost all of the methods. Only five of the financial measures, two of the productivity measures, and two of the quality assurance measures were being used by more than 50% of the respondents. The value for mean perceived usefulness was higher than 3 for all but two of the measures. Most of the measures showed significantly higher frequency of use when they were requested by hospital administrators than when they were not. Requests by external consultants showed less effect on the use of the measures. The use of performance measures was low, but hospital pharmacy directors were familiar with many of these measures and perceived them to be useful.