Look in the Mirror, Not Out the Window: In Favor of Internal Benchmarking

Over the past few decades, institutions have developed complex systems to compare themselves to others with the goal of improving healthcare quality. This process of comparison to others, called external benchmarking, has become the standard approach for quality improvement. However, external benchmarking is resource intensive, may not be flexible enough to focus on problems unique to individual institutions, and may lead to complacency for institutions ranking near the top of the quality bell curve for the measured metrics. Our singular focus on external benchmarking could also divert resources from other approaches. Here, we describe how the use of internal benchmarking, in which an institution focuses on improving their own processes over time, can offer unique advantages as well as offset the limitations of external benchmarking. We advocate for investment in both internal and external benchmarking as complimentary tools to improve healthcare quality.