Overview of the national mental health benchmarking project.

Objective: This paper provides an overview of the National Mental Health Benchmarking Project (NMHBP) which explored the value of benchmarking within the four main program areas of public sector mental health (general adult, child and adolescent, older persons and forensic). The NMHBP involved a series of forums which enabled participating organizations to benchmark themselves against each other, with a view to understanding variability in performance against a range of key performance indicators (KPIs).
Method: Twenty-three mental health organizations took part in the NMHBP. The forums culminated in each mental health organization documenting its performance against relevant KPIs. The processes, impacts and outcomes of the NMHBP were evaluated via a multi-methods evaluation.
Results: There was considerable variability across program streams for many of the KPIs, much of which could be explained by contextual factors. Within program streams there was considerable intra-organization variability. Participants found the examination of intra-organization variability on particular indicators to be useful.
Conclusions: The NMHBP has shown that benchmarking is possible. Managers and clinical leaders will need to champion benchmarking and highlight its utility in relation to quality improvement and service development if the accountability goals of the Fourth National Mental Health Plan are to be realized.