It has been seen that many hospitals, clinics and even individual physicians do not give much importance to healthcare performance metrics as a result of which the overall health and the well being of the patients suffer. According to a survey conducted by some healthcare organizations, it was found that only 18% of healthcare managers put a major role on performance measurement in order to improve the health care system. Healthcare performance indicators are also referred to as key performance indicators, health-related quality indicators or health quality indicators. Key health-related quality indicators are used by healthcare managers in order to identify and measure important areas for improvement. There is a great need to have a better understanding of healthcare performance management.

The current health care environment is quite challenging with the increase in the number of individuals and the growing number of health conditions. In such a scenario, the health care teams are required to respond quickly to the needs of these various patients and have to deal with a variety of complex problems which require them to make quick decisions on the treatment as well as other solutions that will help them maintain a perfect balance between the care and the cost. In order to achieve all these in a proper manner, it is necessary for healthcare managers to analyze all the factors affecting the health care process and identify the shortcomings that could be corrected and can be improved in the long run.

Healthcare performance metrics has been identified as one of the most important tools to evaluate healthcare institutions. It helps the organizations in identifying the factors that affect the health care process and the kind of services that are rendered to the patients and helps them develop plans and measure the progress in an effective manner. There are many healthcare performance indicators for determining the level of service delivery as well as the quality of services provided by healthcare entities. The key performance indicators also includes measures taken on the clinical documentation improvement program and the measures aimed at quality management, rescheduling of patients and more. To make this task easy, several software tools have been developed by the healthcare industry that makes the entire process more organized.