Identify 25 key benchmarks for hospitals within the U.S. healthcare system. Align the benchmarks into one of the three broad categories - quality, operations, and financial. If you feel the benchmark doesn't align with these three categories, please fill in which category you would place it in. You must have at least 5 benchmarks in each broad category. Then identify the industry standard, whether the mean or median (each metric is different), and record them in a table format similar to the template provided in Table 1 (see Appendix). This is an example of identifying industry best practices and aligning healthcare facilities with evidence-based outcomes. Make sure you identify a true benchmark and not just an operating statistic. For example, the total number of beds or outpatient visits is not a benchmark. A better example of a benchmark would be "cost per bed", or "revenue per outpatient visit." You may not be able to find a metric for some benchmarks, but if you combine multiple data sources, you can calculate the benchmark. In the provided example, if you found a hospital's total annual expenses and the number of beds, then you could determine the cost per bed.

You can use the American Hospital Association, American Hospital Directory, Healthcare Financial Management Association, CMS Medicare Cost Report Database, Leapfrog, peer-review journals, or other hospital benchmarking databases to find benchmarks and industry standards. Properly cite references of where you obtain the information and include APA in-text citations in the table. You may note that some sources require membership to gain access to data - you are NOT required or expected to pay for any data access services. The various benchmarking databases may provide information limited to specific patient populations or diseases.