Abstract
Matthew F. Baretich, CCE, PE, PhD, is president of Baretich Engineering in Fort Collins, CO. He is one of the original subject matter experts for AAMI’s Benchmarking Solution. E-mail: mfb@baretich.com Financial performance is one of the most important areas for benchmarking. If you know where you stand relative to similar clinical engineering (CE) programs, you can identify realistic opportunities for improvement and initiate performance improvement activities that are likely to succeed. The key is to use consistent definitions for financial performance and to carefully select your comparison group. AAMI’s Benchmarking Solution gives you the tools to do just that. However, the subject matter experts for AAMI’s Benchmarking Solution (Ted Cohen, Frank Painter, Bob Stiefel, and me) have found that getting internal data can be a challenge. A significant number of ABS subscribers are unable to get access to some types of data within their own organizations. In particular, gaining access to comprehensive internal financial data can be difficult for some CE programs. For example, although salaries for CE personnel are commonly included in the CE budget, benefits often are not. If you want to know the true cost of providing service with your in-house CE personnel (e.g., to decide whether a service contract might be a better alternative), you need to factor in personnel benefits. Those numbers might be in the human resources (HR) or finance budgets, rather than in the CE budget. Unfortunately, a significant number of ABS subscribers have difficulty accessing this information and entering it into ABS.
Published Version
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