Identifying key performance indicators for facilities management in hospital buildings

Abstract

Quality health services entail not only competent healthcare professionals but also effective management of the underpinning facilities. Realizing the importance of quality facilities management (FM) services for hospital buildings, research in this area has grown. But the absence of a credible, scientific method for systematic evaluation of hospital FM performance remains a live issue. Intended to develop such a method, a multi-stage research project has commenced. At the first stage of the project, as reported in this article, a review of relevant literature was conducted to identify indicators that are applicable to assessing hospital FM performance. The 61 indicators identified fall into 6 aspects: financial, physical, safety, patience experience, environmental, and functional. Using the phase-hierarchy (P-H) model, which is a 2-dimensional matrix comprising three phases (input, process and output) of facilities services delivery and three hierarchical FM levels (operational, tactical and strategic), the safety indicators were systematically classified. The majority of them, for measuring the output of a facilities services delivery process, are useful to FM practitioners at the strategic and tactical levels. This method, to be used for classifying the indicators in the remaining aspects, can also be applied to similar future studies on key performance indicators (KPIs).