Purpose – This paper aims to bring greater clarity to the debate on the merits (or demerits) of relative performance evaluation through a broad assessment of current UK National Health Service (NHS) benchmarking. It seeks to examine whether benchmarking is being used dynamically to disseminate...

Purpose – The pupose of this paper is to present an overview of the main conceptual and methodological issues that underlie our current understanding of benchmarking initiatives in the field of health. Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on a pragmatic review of the literature...

Purpose – To review the application of the principles of benchmarking to the field of laboratory medicine. Design/methodology/approach – Review of the literature on performance management techniques employed in healthcare provision, and specifically in laboratory medicine, including...

Purpose – Public sector organisations have to respond to calls for accountability from both funders and recipients of the services, as well as report on operations within constrained financial resources. Given the absence of profit motives and the difficulties of performance assessment in...

Purpose – The paper aims to outline benchmarking and performance monitoring practice developed by the New Zealand Health Information Service at a diagnosis‐related group (DRG) level. Design/methodology/approach – The indicators are calculated from the routine hospital discharge data in the...

Purpose – This paper seeks to describe the New Zealand Ministry of Health District Health Board (DHB) Mental Health Service Profile, which for the first time compares performance on a number of quality indicators for the populations of 21 DHBs. Design/methodology/approach – The background,...

Purpose – The aim of the study is to examine the feasibility of comparing hospitals internationally and to highlight some of the barriers. Design/methodology/approach – Comparative analysis of anonymised patient‐level data from hospitals in New Zealand and the UK. Findings – Comparisons...

Purpose – This paper sets out to evaluate the potential of financial performance benchmarking as an expenditure control tool for a national pathology service comprising both public and private service providers. Design/methodology/approach – Primary data were provided by direct consultation...