How do hospital managers use performance indicators?

Abstract

The main objective of this paper was to analyze how managers of hospital services use performance indicators to conduct the strategic management of resources by means of the perspective of evidence-based knowledge management. A qualitative study was performed to investigate a system of hospital indicators, a public hospital and a philanthropic hospital. The analysis showed that: the studied system is used as a comparative device sector, managers of the public hospital use indicators as a source of management of scarce resources and philanthropic hospital managers use indicators as a source of information for economic sustainability and caregiving. The discussion of results indicated that: information sharing is essential to the application of indicators system, the use of indicators in the public hospital privileges the development of knowledge and the use of indicators in the philanthropic hospital has an emphasis on quality management.