Public sector benchmarking: an application to Italian health district activity plans

Purpose – The paper seeks to suggest an application of the benchmarking technique on the content evaluation of the health district activity plans (HDAPs).Design/methodology/approach – A literature review on benchmarking leads to the definition of a benchmarking process, which is utilized to evaluate and compare the contents of the HDAPs. These documents link the planning activity of the health districts of a region to the objectives comprehensively established at higher levels. Consequently, to define a common level of comparison of the HDAPs, the contents of the texts are evaluated through an in‐depth study of the specific law prescriptions and the adoption of an hermeneutic point of view. The HDAPs collected among the health districts of a single Italian Region represent the empirical data set and their specific benchmarking involves the definition of benchmark scales and placement of “best practices”.Findings – Benchmarking can improve planning capabilities of the health districts pointing out their mo...

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