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 – 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,...