Healthcare as a task of local government in Poland

The subject of this article is benchmarking existing hospitals in order to cover the healthcare demand of Polish local communities. Duly performed ownership supervision should include an impartial evaluation of the head managers and their relevant motivation to improve quality while maintaining acceptable profitability. Lack of practical tools, such as best practice guidelines for local governments, and of tools which would help to implement them, prevents from keeping relevant supervision over dependent hospitals. The aim of this study was to introduce the concept of a practical benchmarking instrument relevant to actual issues that local government meets when supervising their hospitals. The concept of benchmarking is approached from various perspectives: a way of learning from the best, an instrument which contributes to the management efficiency improvement and a tool for monitoring results of the management of the hospital.