The Relationship between a Job Promotion Plan and Performance Indicators of Hospitals Affiliated to Kerman University of Medical Sciences

Abstract

Introduction: In today's world which is full of competition and technological progress, employees should be encouraged to improve their skills in order to prevent personal drawbacks and to survive and promote their organization. Therefore, a plan called "The path for job promotion among nurses and health care professionals" was approved and executed in hospitals. In the present study, the relationship between implementation of this plan and hospital performance indicators was examined. Methods: The present descriptive-analytical research was implemented in hospitals affiliated to Kerman University of Medical Sciences in the summer of 2009. The scores of various titles and indicators obtained by people liable to the abovementioned plan (approved by the Ministry of Health, Treatment and Medical Education) in 2008 were calculated and their relationship with hospital performance indicators (percentage of occupied beds, average hospital stay of the patients and bed rotation) in the same year was evaluated. To analyze the data, Kendal correlation coefficient was used in SPSS11. Results: The plan consists of three general titles including factors related to personal skills and abilities (training courses, education, experience and responsibility), factors related to the individual's performance (clients' satisfaction, quality of services, establishment of health principles, presenting recommendations, and training colleagues), and other factors (presenting books and articles, researches, services in rural areas, encouragement and appreciation). Among these titles and indicators, there were only significant relationships only between clients' satisfaction and the percentage of occupied beds (P = 0.02), establishment of health principles and bed rotation (P = 0.04), services in rural areas and the percentage of occupied beds (P = 0.01) as well as average hospital stay of the patients (P = 0.02). Conclusion: Based on our results, the plan could not achieve its main objective, i.e. improving individual and thus organizational performance. Therefore, its design and execution need to be reviewed and evaluated again. It is recommended to provide scores based on valid principles and documents. In addition, to promote competitiveness, 65% of the scores should be allocated to nurses and other health positions that gained higher scores. Keywords: Performance; Hospitals; Medicine.