Healthcare in the Middle East is one of those topics that has always provoked debate. The debate essentially revolves around the issue of quality and whether services in the region are of a high enough standard.

The opinions expressed are inevitably varied. And even though some of the best international doctors, some of the best facilities and some of the best international healthcare brands are available in the region, the debate rages on.

The reason for this is both simple and surprising: It is that though healthcare is an exact science no empirical data or measurements about how well the region is doing in terms of healthcare are available. The region lacks a definitive and consistent method for assessing the successes, and indeed failures, of individual healthcare providers and individual specialist medical departments.

The use of benchmarking in medical institutions is an extremely viable and objective tool for measuring and assessing healthcare. It is an instrument that, if applied properly, has benefited patients first and has had huge positive knock-on effects on the medical community and society – not to mention the reputations of individual healthcare providers.

In practice, different types of benchmarking allow for any amount of data to be compared. Internal benchmarking is probably already being implemented by the region's healthcare providers as a tool whereby current practices can be measured against performance in the past.

Implementing internal benchmarking is both highly practical and a real driver for a practice or medical department to focus on building its strengths and recognising its comparative weaknesses.

It offers an insight into daily operational practices that can be as basic – yet as fundamental – as operating costs. By benchmarking, the healthcare provider can analyse where for example it is spending unnecessarily compared to the past, and as such seek to enable progressive goals for the future of the organisation to be set and achieved.

It is, however, in external benchmarking that key healthcare players will secure the most comprehensive picture of their current position. External benchmarking will allow institutions to make comparisons with national and international benchmarks. And it shows how a particular hospital practice or division, for example cardiology, is faring against the national average or international norms.

Medical professionals will no doubt be in consensus on which elements of benchmarking must be applied to the region. Post-operative mortality rates essentially answer the most fundamental questions that patients and the doctors referring these patients will ask – for example: "Do I stand a better chance of survival if I have my operation at this hospital as opposed to another?'' A holistic approach to benchmarking is preferable as external factors can have an impact on figures. Healthcare providers should, therefore, seek to benchmark against a number of factors for the complete picture.

Average post-operative stay, operative mortality, returns to theatre post-operation and infection rates during the procedure all provide ample indicators on the provider's overall capability.

You only need to look at the West for examples of how benchmarking is having a positive impact on medical care. The big players delivering world-class heart care across North America, for example, measure their data against national averages reported by the American College of Cardiology National Cardiovascular Data Registry (ACC-NCDR).

Benchmarking against such data serves to provide a clear picture of healthcare in an increasingly competitive environment and in a world where operational success rates are the most important markers to the most important stakeholders – potential patients. Also, providers will be permitted a peek into the competition, and the scope for building patient trust, safeguarding efficiency and driving the highest standards in healthcare internally and into the wider community will be vast.

What could also work to benefit a healthcare provider is benchmarking on a non-medical level.

Although the quality and not quantity rule applies stringently in the medical world, the ability to measure and compare quantities such as number of hospital beds, services offered, number of admissions, productivity, or the rate at which patients are seen by available specialists, gives a sound comparative idea of a hospital or clinic's efficiency and competence.

Employing benchmarking on other indicators such as the number of calls or e-mails answered, right down to patient feedback and the number of accreditations a hospital has, each seek to provide further clarity.

The implications of benchmarking are numerous. In this region, implementing benchmarking across the board will add kudos to the well-established notion that healthcare here is good. In fact, it has the capacity to turn it from good into excellent – assuming, of course, its data proves that this is so. It also allows a healthcare provider to critically assess itself, enabling it to highlight any problem areas, and look towards improving these in the future.

The availability of this type of comparative data in the region could serve to decrease the numbers of patients who go – or are advised to go – abroad to more developed economies for certain types of medical treatment. Overall, benchmarking would mean the region could finally empower certain healthcare providers to realise their deserved position as purveyors of world-class standard healthcare.

Collectively these healthcare providers will contribute to the broad definition of the Middle East as a region where healthcare is no longer sidelined –a region in which healthcare competes with the best internationally.

- The writer is Director of Marketing, Welcare