Move Beyond KPI Accountability

Forthcoming research from MIT Sloan Management Review investigates the role of key performance indicators (KPIs) in driving business growth. In the first video of a multipart series exploring executive orientation toward KPIs, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center CIO Dr. John Halamka shares his views on the metrics that drive a major academic hospital forward.

The study found that executive transparency around goal-setting leads to stronger KPI alignment and better positions organizations for growth. After developing a KPI alignment index that weights responses to six survey questions to benchmark leading and lagging organizations, we found that more than 83% of Measurement Leaders monitor or have access to other C-suite KPIs. Stakeholders across the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center — practicing clinicians and senior executives alike — have a voice in shaping the IT solutions the hospital can deploy to better serve doctors, patients, and the community. As a result, Dr. Halamka’s IT team has built mobile applications, including an internally facing capacity dashboard that reports on the saturation of specific clinical departments. The team has also designed health-monitoring technology solutions for patients and their families.

A long-term advocate of data transparency, Dr. Halamka has made his own genome and electronic health record public and strives, with patient consent, to use medical data to increasingly assist clinicians and their patients in delivering quality care. He espouses these views in this first video of the series.