This page describes how benchmarking could be applied to and gives sample benchmarks for health promotion. The Health Promotion (HP) benchmarks use the California State University (CSU) System and National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO) benchmarks of Clinical Student Health Services (CSHS) as guidelines. These should be developed by a task force of health educators who have appropriate professional preparation and competencies in health promotion theories and practices; and health care and business administration.
There are two types of benchmarks to do for Health Promotion: 1. community and 2. clinical. Additionally, general benchmarks for SHSs are listed at the end. The comparable CSHS benchmark is shown in italics.
Benchmarking gathers, analyzes and uses comparative data of activities to identify best practices, outstanding performance and improvement opportunities. Data can be internal (within the department) and external (peer departments (see note below)) data.
Benchmarking health promotion activities can assist health educators develop best practices for:
Benchmarking health promotion activities can be used to achieve greater:
1. Community and 2. Clinical. 3. General Benchmarks for SHS. The comparable CSHS benchmark is shown in italics.
Community Health Promotion Benchmarks
1. Number of eligible students per health promotion FTE.
Number of eligible students per per clinical FTE.
- Example: 16,670 visits divided by 18 = 926
2. Percent of students who received one-to-one contact for health education or counseling at least three times per eligible student.
3. Number of long-term (at least one year) social marketing programs based on "needs" assessments.
4. Number of awareness programs (health fairs, weeks, months, days) per HP FTE.
5. Number of presentations to groups (classes, residence halls, clubs) per HP FTE.
6. Estimated total participants (can be duplicated count) at all programs and presentations in 4. and 5. above.
7. Total outpatient visits per health promotion FTE.
Number of outpatient visits per clinical FTE.
8. Number of Health Risk Appraisals (unduplicated count) administered per eligible student.
Number of Pap Smears per eligible female student.
Number of X-Rays, Physical Therapy sessions, Lab Tests and Pharmacy services per outpatient visit to health center
9. Number of Health Risk Appraisals with individualized results returned to student per eligible student.
10. Number of Health Risk Appraisals with individualized results plus tailored behavior change messages per eligible student.
11. Number of follow-up (letter, email, phone) contacts per patient education client. (see note below)
1. Number of student users of health center as a percent of total eligible students.
2. Student visits to health center per eligible student.
3. Patient visits per student user of health center.
4. Number of student outpatient visits per health center full-time equivalent (FTE) total staffing.
* It is important to compare departments from universities
with similar demographic characteristics. These include ratios
of male to female and commuter to non-commuter students, location
(urban or rural), and student body size. Return to Applying
Benchmarks
I've suggested HRAs since research by Kreuter and others indicates that people start using health enhancing behaviors of their choice after completing them. About 15% to 20% who complete an HRA without getting results will have changed a behavior 6-months later. 40% to 50% who get results with tailored behavior change information will have changed a behavior of their choice. Return to 8
Follow-up for up to one to two years is a best practice and results in a double to triple behavior change success rate (70% to 80%) over no follow-up. Follow-ups are documented in the Guidelines for Clinical Preventive Services at the National Institutes of Health web page http://text.nlm.nih.gov/ . Return to 11
Go to Definitions of Benchmarking
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