Think big, start small, act now: Tackling indicator chaos

The health quality councils of Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia, in partnership with the Canadian Patient Safety Institute recently released their proceedings report from the national summit held in May to discuss health indicator reporting in Canada. We participated in the summit, along with other national organizations including the Canadian Institute for Health Information and Statistics Canada, Accreditation Canada, provincial health quality councils, provincial and territorial ministries of health and academic leaders in health indicator development and reporting.

The report summarizes the outcomes from the meeting, which were to bring together stakeholders involved in health indicator reporting from across Canada to work towards a national alignment of health indicator reporting priorities.  The report acknowledges the vast expertise in health indicator reporting in Canada and the capacity that exists to measure health system performance.  However, in the words of one of the organizers, Gary Teare, the way forward is “… to step back and try to understand how to connect the expertise and use it to the best advantage across the country”.

For more information, read the full report.

Susan Brien, Policy Lead, Health Council of Canada