EM benchmarking: quality of service - a stroke management case with improvements

Background Benchmarking as “The continuous process of measuring our products, services and practices against our toughest competitors or those companies known as leaders” is an national and international effort among Emergency Medicine Departmemts (EMD). Qualitative and quantitative measures are systematically collected as arguments for change in services according to the principles of the learning organisation. In Denmark the “Nationale Indikator Projekt” (NIP) initiative is a national model for benchmarking service providers in several domains including stroke treatment. The introduction of EM departments in Denmark is part of a national strategic decision to focus on the hand over from primary to secondary health care sectors. This shift has raised a lot of skepticism according the quality of service. We feel that data to elucidate the pros and cons of the EM strategy is needed. We present the current results from the EMD in Nykøbing Falster, Denmark.