A useful hospital dashboard fits on one page and tracks about twelve indicators covering the front desk, inpatient care, finance, pharmacy and laboratory. Each indicator needs a written definition and a calculation formula that stays the same from month to month. Targets, on the other hand, should be set from your own facility’s history.
Key takeaways
- Twelve well-defined indicators are worth more than fifty unexplained figures.
- Each indicator has a definition, a formula, a data source and a person responsible.
- Targets are set from your own history, not from figures borrowed elsewhere.
- An indicator is only as good as the data entry behind it.
The rules of a reliable hospital dashboard
Before choosing indicators, set the method. Without it, two people calculate the same indicator and get two different results.
- Write down the definition and formula of each indicator, and do not change them without saying so.
- State the source of each data item: register, software, cashier, pharmacy.
- Name a person responsible for each indicator, who checks the data before the meeting.
- Set the calculation period (day, week or month) and always keep the same one.
- Show each indicator alongside its values for previous months, so trends are visible.
Example: a clinic in Accra counts free follow-up visits as consultations one month and stops counting them the next. The curve drops even though real activity has not changed.
Front desk and activity: 3 indicators
| Indicator | Definition | Calculation formula |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Consultations per day | Average number of consultations performed and recorded per opening day, in total and per clinician | Consultations in the period / opening days in the period |
| 2. Average front-desk waiting time | Average time between patient registration and the start of the consultation | Sum of measured waiting times / number of patients measured |
| 3. Missed appointment rate | Share of scheduled appointments where the patient did not attend | (Missed appointments / scheduled appointments) × 100 |
Waiting time only makes sense if registration time and consultation start time are recorded for every patient. Example: if the start time is missing for some patients, check data entry first before discussing the waiting time.
Inpatient care: 3 indicators
| Indicator | Definition | Calculation formula |
|---|---|---|
| 4. Bed occupancy rate | Share of available bed-days actually occupied by patients | (Inpatient days delivered / (available beds × days in the period)) × 100 |
| 5. Average length of stay (ALOS) | Average number of days spent in hospital per discharged patient | Inpatient days of discharged patients / number of discharges in the period |
| 6. Bed turnover rate | Average number of patients admitted per bed over the period | Discharges in the period / number of available beds |
Worked example with fictitious figures: a 30-bed clinic has 900 bed-days available over a 30-day month. If it delivered 630 inpatient days, its occupancy rate is 630 / 900 × 100, or 70%. This figure illustrates the calculation; it is neither an average nor a benchmark.
Also set a counting convention for inpatient days, for example counting the day of admission but not the day of discharge, and stick to it. Our article on hospital bed management explains how to make these movements reliable.
Finance: 3 indicators
| Indicator | Definition | Calculation formula |
|---|---|---|
| 7. Cash collected | Amounts actually collected over the period, by department and by payment method | Sum of payments received in the period |
| 8. Collection rate | Share of amounts billed in the period that have been collected | (Amounts collected on invoices of the period / amounts billed in the period) × 100 |
| 9. Average payer settlement time | Average number of days between submitting a claim to an insurer, an HMO or the NHIS and receiving payment | Sum of delays (payment date minus submission date) / number of claims settled |
Read these three indicators together. Example: a clinic in Lagos whose cash collected in naira is rising may at the same time see its HMO settlement time getting longer, which will eventually strain its cash flow. To act on this delay, see our method for recovering receivables from insurers and health schemes.
Pharmacy and laboratory: 3 indicators
| Indicator | Definition | Calculation formula |
|---|---|---|
| 10. Stock-out rate | Share of tracked products that were out of stock at least once during the period | (Products out of stock at least once / products tracked) × 100 |
| 11. Value of expired products | Value of products removed from stock because they expired | Sum of (expired quantity × unit purchase cost) |
| 12. Average lab turnaround time | Average time between the test request and the availability of the validated result | Sum of turnaround times / number of results reported |
Calculate the stock-out rate on a list of essential products agreed with doctors and the pharmacy: across thousands of items, the indicator loses its meaning. Example: a medical centre in Tamale tracks stock-outs on a fixed product list, reviewed every year. Our advice on preventing pharmacy stock-outs and expiries complements this tracking.
Dashboards and MediFlow
MediFlow aims to feed these indicators from one tool as its modules arrive: smart medical follow-up, laboratory, inpatient care and billing, in development.
Attendance, on-call and stock indicators (stock-outs, products close to expiry) already rely on data recorded as it happens, since these modules are available.
Frequently asked questions
How do we set a target value for an indicator?
Start from your own history: measure the indicator for several months with the same formula, then set a realistic target with the people responsible. Values from other facilities are only useful if their definitions are identical to yours.
How often should these indicators be reviewed?
It depends on the indicator. Revenue and waiting time can be reviewed daily or weekly, bed occupancy weekly, and length of stay, expiries and payer settlement time monthly. What matters is keeping the same frequency over time.
Who should own the dashboard?
Management owns it, but each indicator has a data owner: the front desk for waiting time, nursing for beds, the cashier for payments, the pharmacy for stock. One designated person consolidates everything and presents it at the management meeting.
Want to see how MediFlow fits your facility? Request a free demo.
