The metrics process: Baylor's development of a "Report card" for faculty and departments

In 1996, Baylor College of Medicine began the first year Of its "metrics pr ocess," collecting analyzing, and reporting data an the performance of each individual faculty member and each department in achieving the school's mi ssions of education, patient care, research, service, and finance. This art icle is a report of the first two years of the process, with updates about the 1999 process, future plans, and lessons learned. The primary goal of the metrics process is to provide meaningful data to as sess and improve the performance of faculty and departments across all miss ions. The authors (1) indicate the categories chosen, within each mission o f the school, for measuring faculty time and effort (e.g., patient care,wit h or without learners) and state the measures chosen (e.g., percentage of t ime); (2) describe the development of questionnaires in 1996 and 1997 to ac quire data from faculty, in the chosen categories and measures, about the t ime and effort they spent; and (3) report highlights of the resulting depar tmental data that were gathered in 1997. Among the key categories and units of measure chosen for measuring faculty (and departmental) time and effort are research grant dollars (total and per research full-time equivalent, o r FTE); basic research grant dollars per square foot of laboratory space; p ercent age of faculty who spend at least 50% of their time in research who are National Institutes of Health principal investigators numbers of patien t and outpatient visits-per evaluation and management FTE total relative va lue units (RVUs) per patient-care FTE patient-care:income/RVU and expense/R VU for total faculty and support staff; percentage of faculty with at least one leadership position in a stale or-national organization and income in excess of expense, by mission (e.g., patient care). Results of comparing da ta; from the first two years of the metrics process demonstrate marked impr ovements in performance for most research measures(i.e., items of measureme nt agreed upon for the metrics process). The process is continually being r edeveloped; the ultimate challenge is to place the objective measurements:i n:a context where less objective qualities(e.g, innovation) also figure imp ortantly in the evaluation and fostering of excellence. The metrics process is providing:important management data, encouraging significant discussion s among faculty and chairs about-performance; and ac countability, and aidi ng greatly in departmental goal set- ring and ultimately in determining the overall performance of the school.