KPI Management Process

A Key Performance Indicator (KPI) is a quantifiable metric that reflects how well an organization is achieving its stated goals and objectives.

For example, if one of your goals is to increase your number of new patients, you could use a KPI to target the number of new patients at the end of each week. This will measure your progress toward your objective.

KPI's link organizational vision to individual action. An ideal situation is where KPI's cascade from level to level in an organization.

Used well, KPI's support your dental practice goals and systems. They allow you to focus on what matters most, and to monitor your progress.

How to Set Organizational KPI's

First, your practice needs to choose KPI's that measure the appropriate activity for each area of the business.

For example, net collections is a standard KPI for a dental practice financial performance. It's easy enough to calculate (total revenue minus adjustments), and you know that the higher it is, the better the practice is performing.

Others may be harder to calculate. A customer satisfaction KPI, for example, may require regular, carefully constructed customer surveys to build the right amount of data. You'd then have to decide what sort of customer satisfaction score represents the benchmark you want to achieve.

Note:

Try not to have too many KPI's: the optimum number for most areas of a dental practice is between 15 and 20. Make sure that you have enough to measure how your team and practice is performing against your key objectives.

Setting SMART KPIs

Whatever the nature of your KPIs, you need to make sure that they're SMART. This stands for:

• Specific - be clear about what each KPI will measure, and why it's important

• Measurable - the KPI must be measurable to a defined standard

• Achievable - you must be able to deliver on the KPI

• Relevant - your KPI must measure something that matters and improves performance

• Time-Bound - it's achievable within an agreed time frame

When you finalize a KPI, it should fulfill all these SMART criteria. For example, “Increase hygiene perio 25% by the end of the third quarter of the financial year.”

Ask yourself the following questions to help you to understand the context and define effective KPI's:

• What is your practie vision? What is the strategy for achieving that vision?

• Which metrics will indicate that you are successfully pursuing your vision and core values?

• How many KPI’s should you have?

• What should you use as a benchmark?

• How could the KPI’s be cheated, and how will you guard against this?

Managing Your KPI's

When you're deciding which KPI's to set up, plan how you'll capture the information you need. Net profit requires a different set of data than patient recall, for example, and requires access to different systems.

Also, establish who will collect the data and how frequently. Patient data can usually be collected daily, whereas KPI's that require data to be collected from several sources might be better measured weekly or monthly.

You'll need to verify the data to make sure it's accurate and that it covers all the requirements of your KPI.

Communicate KPI's clearly to the whole team. If you're responsible for a team KPI, make sure that your coworkers know how each KPI impacts their work and that they know which systems to focus on. You should set up a performance dashboard or use a balanced scorecard to measure progress efficiently.

How to Set Individual KPI's

"What gets measured gets done" is a common management saying. If you set a goal around a desired outcome, the chances of that outcome occurring are much higher, simply because you have committed to managing and measuring your progress toward it.

When you set goals and KPI's with individual team members, make sure that they align with your overall vision and core values.

Defining an employee's goal with an organizational KPI ensures that their daily activities are well aligned with the goals of the organization. This is the critical link between employee performance and practice success.

Using KPI's for Recognition and Development

When you are satisfied that you have meaningful KPI's to measure the performance of your team, and of your practice, make sure that the appropriate training, support and incentives are in place to enable your people to perform well.

When you establish your rewards and recognition practices, make sure that they relate directly to the KPI's you've set, and that you're not rewarding potentially counterproductive behaviors. For example, if your organization wants to attract new patients, then you might have a KPI that measures how many new patients you gain each week. Depending on the situation, a well-aligned performance system may reward employees based on the number of new patients they personally help to attract.