Healthcare organizations are formed with the aim of providing high-quality and timely medical services to the targeted patients. Leaders of such organizations can rely on the power of balanced scorecards to turn operations around and solve some of the existing challenges. Managers using the framework will be in a position to identify some of the factors promoting performance and key areas affecting profitability (Catuogno et al., 2017). In medical facilities, policymakers will rely on the tool to identify financial targets, patient aims, and human resources. They will merge the available procedures and practices to ensure that process goals are achieved. Unfortunately, medical institutions will encounter various challenges when relying on the BSC.
First, a BSC puts more emphasis on internal operations and activities. While such a feature can work effectively for firms operating in different business fields, health institutions will be unable to reap ore record the best outcomes after applying the BSC tool. The focus on patients’ outcomes overshadows other aspects of care delivery. Consequently, the BSC would remain an ineffective tool in most of the medical facilities. Medical institutions will find it hard to use the tool and implement it accordingly to deliver positive outcomes. Second, the model fails to offer a detailed formal review that can help institutions identify existing gaps and the best approaches to improve performance.
This gap will discourage health leaders from implementing BSC to identify existing opportunities, strengths, and key areas for continuous improvement (Catuogno et al., 2017). Third, the nature of medical institutions explains why they will mostly focus on service delivery. This scenario means that the available reporting and data collection strategies will be inadequate and incapable of delivering positive results. This gap would discourage or affecting the manner in which BSC is implemented in organizations.
Reference
Catuogno, S., Arena, C., Saggese, S., & Sarto, F. (2017). Balanced performance measurement in research hospitals: The participative case study of a haematology department. BMC Health Services Research, 17, 522-532. Web.