Performance Management at Intermountain Healthcare

Abstract

Intermountain Healthcare is a 21-hospital integrated delivery system serving Utah and southern Idaho that is nationally recognized for its highly structured approach to managing the quality of clinical care. This case describes Intermountain's system for improving clinical performance that makes use of the organization's extensive set of standardized clinical protocols and associated clinical process and outcome measures. The measures underpin a sophisticated set of financial incentives that are applied to both administrative and clinical staff. The case allows students to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of financial incentives in clinical medicine.

Learning Objective: 1. Understand the strengths and limitations of pay-for-performance in healthcare delivery. 2. Examine a deliberate and highly structured approach to managing clinical performance of a healthcare delivery organization.