To us, and the users of Nightingale Notes, in a public health agency setting, Performance Management is the process whereby an agency involves everyone, both as individuals and as group members, to help improve organizational effectiveness.

Performance Management means different things to different people.

The Wikipedia Performance Management definition says that Performance Management:

“includes activities which ensure that goals are consistently being met in an effective and efficient manner.

Performance management can focus on the performance of an organization, a department, employee, or even the processes to build a product or service, as well as many other areas.”

This can be done several ways, and for public health agencies can include:

  • Identifying areas of duplication, overlap or redundancy where different departments or people are doing the same or very similar task for the same or different people or departments, which may not even really be needed
  • Eliminating the need to request / enter the same information several times
  • Ensuring that different individual or groups don’t set up multiple reports to display the same information
  • Saving time by finding shared pathways, or seeing what other agencies have already done, before committing resources to a new way of thinking or changing procedures or processes
  • Understanding what works for other similar clients, agencies and locations, and learning from them
  • Seeing what could be automated or integrated with other systems to provide more information, or save more time

As a result of thinking about Performance Management, patient care is likely to be dramatically improved, as procedures can be streamlined, meaning that more attention can be spent on patient care, and less on patient administration.

Perhaps:

  • It wasn’t obvious how long healthcare professionals spent finding patient information that should be instantly accessible
  • Nobody really knew how long was spent creating reports
  • Nobody realized how much duplication there was

As can be seen, it’s easy to see how significant time and cost savings can be made.

This type of thinking can help to improve agency mission and increase goals dramatically, and a more efficient and effective agency is likely to be able to provide better patient care.

Nightingale Notes uses the Omaha System, and enables users to have the Standard data per program or customized data collected on Custom Tabs.

This makes it easy to see a program’s Key Indications for the Performance Management System at a glance, meaning that more time can be spent helping clients.

Having all the data in a centralized location, means that information is standardized, reliable, accurate and up to date, which makes it more useful for those that need it.

“Having quantitative data demands that huge amounts of data are collected and processed, however that data remains largely in EHR ‘data cemeteries.’

That’s what we’ve really got to get away from. We have to move from collecting data, to using data. We need to convert data to information, knowledge, and wisdom.”

Karen S. Martin, RN, MSN, FAAN, Health Care Consultant, Martin Associates

Another benefit of having this information in a centralized location, is that it can be accessed, by those that need it, when they need it.

Because Nightingale Notes is a cloud based EHR, this information is available whether in the office using a PC, or when with a client using a laptop or tablet.

Nightingale Notes also supports the preparation or maintenance of the PHAB accreditation.

Next steps

If you’re ready to see how Nightingale Notes can help you help with Performance Management, why not Contact Us at (507) 388-4141 today, and tell us what you need.

We’re looking forward to hearing from you.

Beverly Larson, RN, MPH, CPHQ & Jean Durch, RN, BSN