Benchmarking Help & Training
Help & Training
Our Benchmarking Committee, staff, and software team are here and ready to lend you assistance. If you encounter an issue or have questions, please email us or call us at 1-800-899-1109 and we will respond swiftly.
Resources Below:
Supporting Materials & Training Documents
AHF’s Benchmarking Committee has compiled help and training documents to assist you on your benchmarking journey.
Benchmarking Metric Action Items & Improvement Tips Guide
Outlines tips, commentary, and ways to improve your operation based on the results of your monthly Benchmarking Express profile analysis.
Data Collection Worksheet (Acute Care Worksheet)
Helps you understand the metrics and what is included in each data point you need to submit each month.
Data Collection Worksheet (Senior Dining Worksheet)
Helps you understand the metrics and what is included in each data point you need to submit each month.
How to Communicate the Importance of Benchmarking
Guides you in regular communication of performance metrics to top administrators as well as “working metrics” to staff.
KPI Outlier Worksheet – Acute Care
Warns an Operator when a possible data entry error has been made. Outlines AHF’s accepted data ranges for each Key Performance Indicator (KPI).
KPI Outlier Worksheet – Senior Dining
Warns an Operator when a possible data entry error has been made. Outlines AHF’s accepted data ranges for each Key Performance Indicator (KPI).
Scorecards & Dashboard Templates
Templates to help build monthly scorecards and dashboards for reporting to administrators and success tracking.
Master Scorecard Reporting Excel Template
To help build monthly scorecards and dashboards for reporting to administrators and success tracking.
System Functionalities
Five main “functionality segments”
- Home screen – Houses facility profiles for those managing multiple sites and provides access to a scatterplot.
- Facility Analysis Tab – Personal analysis and dashboards of your facilities data. Data will always be stored here for internal analysis. Real-time updates as you enter data.
- Submit Data Tab Tab – Submit data and demographic survey results on this screen, make data changes.
- Facility Reports Tab – Houses primary reports run by facility users for easy recall
- Benchmarking Analysis Tab – Primary benchmarking center. Compared facility to industry whole with the ability to segment against specific industry targets
To submit data, log into your benchmarking profile and click on the name of your facility. Once inside, click on the Select Data tab and then click the month you want to enter data for on the left-hand side of the screen. If this is your first time benchmarking, you will need to complete the demographic survey which will appear automatically when you click to enter data for any month.
Dashboards allow you to control the metrics you view along with the period type and the period through which your dashboard will display data. More on each of these controls follows:
Dashboard Views: Dashboards have multiple “Views.” Each view represents an analysis type and displays related metrics relevant to benchmarking in our industry. To change your view, click the drop-down menu and select the new view.
Filters: you will see filter options throughout the various system tabs. You can filter by overall metric, time period (monthly, quarterly, or annual), and under the “Benchmarking Analysis” Tab you can filter using our many metric filters such as Facility Bed Size.
Please Note: You need to have data entered to be able to see results for specific time periods. Example: If you enter data for the month of April, you can see April filter results.
In the Facility Analysis Tab and also in the Benchmarking Analysis Tab under Performance Measure, you will see a green column showing you the “Variance” and the “% Change”. The Variance (see below) and Percentage Change (see below) columns will be calculated based of the difference between the month (or time period) you are looking at, and the month (or time period) immediately preceding it. Example: If you are looking at your filtered results for April, it will show the variance between April and March.
Throughout the system, you will see rating arrows on the left-hand side of the graphs shown on the screens.
Use the up and down arrows to see how your facility is doing for each metric in comparison to the month previous. A green up arrow indicates, for example, that the metric in question for April 2019 is better than March of 2019.
- Green: This color alert highlights positive period-over-period trends. The variance and percent change for green indicators can be either positive or negative depending on the metric.
- Red: These alerts indicate that the period-over-period trend is negative. The variance and percent change for red indicators can be either positive or negative depending on the metric.
- Yellow: This color indicates that the trend is neutral.
The Benchmarking Analysis Tab is the primary benchmarking center. This is where you will compare your facility to the industry as a whole with the ability to segment against specific industry targets.
Within the Benchmarking Analysis Tab, there are two main functionality areas The Benchmarking Trends & The Performance Monitor.
- Benchmarking Trend charts allow users to quickly drill-down to view the underlying metric and lead details that support key trends. Use Trend Charts to easily discover the underlying details of trends from your Dashboard.
- Performance Monitor allows users to execute comparative analysis against anonymous peer group data sets using one or more filters. You can filter using our preset options and using various time periods and drill-down options.
Minimum Benchmarking Peers: Please note that if there are not at least five peer facilities for a specific metric to compare yourself against the system will not return data and you will see an error message indicating you need additional peers. If you have entered data for the month previous early and are not getting results for most metrics, that means our other benchmarkers have not yet submitted data to compare against. Check back after a few days or weeks when more will have submitted their monthly data.
Facility Analysis – Personal analysis and dashboards of your facilities’ data. Data will always be stored here for internal analysis. Real-time updates as you enter data each month. You can sort, filter, and search through your own facilities data.
A Validation Report is a reporting showing 24 months of your own facilities data for ALL of our available KPIs. It is one of the key reports you should know how to pull. If you don’t have 24 months of data, it will show you as many as you have available. This report is a great way to download all your data or do a high-level comparison and analysis of your facility data.
Annual Report: This report will show you our compiled industry high-level metrics which are released in the first quarter of each year. This is a great report to share with administrators for the primary KPIs AHF recommends being aware of, and comparing yourself against.
To pull the reports:
Click into the “Facility Reports Tab”. Then mouseover a report image to see a description of the report. Once you find a report you wish to run, click the image; a box will display with a button labeled “Generate Now”; click the generate button to run the report. The report can then be downloaded to your device.
System Basics Training Video
Frequently Asked Questions
Administrative Questions
System-Level Administrators: If you are an administrator who requires access to view multiple benchmarking facilities, please contact us so that we can assign the other facilities to your benchmarking profile. Once all the facilities have been assigned you can login and access each one from your primary profile.
Please note each facility you wish to benchmark for will require it’s own institutional membership.
To login to AHF’s Benchmarking ExpressTM Program visit this page and enter the same username and password as your AHF membership profile. If you are having access issues please email benchmarking@healthcarefoodservice.org.
First Time Benchmarkers: A Benchmarking profile comes free with every Institutional membership. If you have never benchmarked before, simply log in below to “activate” your benchmarking profile. If you receive an error message, send us an email and we will resolve or confirm you have been assigned a Benchmarking Facility ID.
First Login: To login you will access the system using the “Login” link above.
Your username and password are now the same as your AHF membership log-in credentials. If you make a change to your AHF membership profile, it will update in the Benchmarking program as well.
When you login the first thing you will be asked to complete is our Annual Benchmarking Facility Demographics Survey. The administrator for your facility will need to complete this survey (or confirm it’s selections) each year to help us keep our benchmarking program data accurate. Once you have logged in and completed the Annual Benchmarking Facility Demographics Survey, you’re ready to start entering data!
Facility Administrator: We will automatically assign the Key Contact for your institutional membership as the administrator of your benchmarking profile. This can be changed by emailing us at any time.
Our Benchmarking Express system and AHF Membership Database are linked. To change your Benchmarking password, you need to update your username or password through the AHF website directly. If you forgot your password, click “forgot password” in order to receive a reset link in your email inbox.
Absolutely. AHF staff only have access to provide edits to your account from an administrative perspective. Every member of our staff and our software provider team sign detailed confidentiality agreements to add a further layer of protection. Your data with your name and facilities information will never be released without your express permission.
AHF does create and provide annual industry reports, however, that data will always show aggregated numbers and data sets and never the individual data of a facility.
Furthermore, our software provider has additional securities and encryptions in place to ensure your data is protected.
Yes. As long as they are a member of your institutional membership with AHF, you can provide them with access to view or edit data in your benchmarking profile. If you need add members to your account, please email membership@healthcarefoodservice.org.
There are four benchmarking profile access types:
- Administrator – Gives full access to view, edit, or enter data for your facility(s) benchmarking profile(s)
- Secondary Data Entry – Gives full access to view, edit, or enter data for your facility(s) benchmarking profile(s), but shows they are the secondary owner, not the primary.
- View Only – Access to view the data within your benchmarking profile, but they cannot edit or enter data.
- No Access – Even though they are an AHF member and part of your institutional membership, they will not have access to the benchmarking profile at all.
