Designing a nationally acceptable system of hospital peer grouping

Abstract

Little has been published on the design, use and evaluation of peer groupings of hospitals.This article explores the issue in the context of public hospitals in New South Wales.The- process, established over the last two years by New South Wales Health, aims to meetsix principles of peer grouping. Through a six-step procedure, the methodology focuses on theclassification of hospitals by role, size and measure of acuity. Further research is needed tocompare benchmarking across States and to identify which of the methodologies should beadopted nationally.Background