Performance management in public hospitals

Public hospitals are the key subjects determining the performance of Czech health care system. As the relevance of topic of system performance in recent years increases, this work responds to this development by examining the practice of institutional performance management in the environment of Czech public hospitals with an emphasis on identifying the opportunities for efficiency gains of this practice. Using and in-depth literature review this work identifies relevant aspects of performance management in the environment of public hospital. Impact of these aspects is subsequently examined in the environment of Czech public hospitals using three empirical surveys and the mixed methodological approach. Combined with findings from the literature, the results of the surveys outline the view of performance management practices in Czech public hospitals dealing mainly with issues of poor quality of performance information, low credibility of performance measurement, problematic communication of performance management and insufficient quality of internal information systems. Solution to these issues is proposed in line with recommendation from the literature with aim of increase in quality of institutional performance management practice and of enhancement capacity for organizational learning as this capacity is crucial for further development of qualitative side of performance management.