Healthcare system performance indicators: a new beginning for a reformed Canadian healthcare system.

Canada's healthcare system is the envy of many other countries and their citizens around the world. And like other members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Canada is under pressure to reduce healthcare expenditures. One strategy being explored by Canadian provincial governments is to regionalize or decentralize the delivery of healthcare services. To ensure achievement of its goals for each region, the Ministry of Health requires each regional health authority to submit a business plan and annual report, including performance information and underlying performance indicators. Performance indicators are used to measure process and outcome as well; they are useful for generating questions about the behavior or the performance of a provider or organization. A system for defining systemic performance measures for a publicly funded healthcare system does not exist. However, the performance indicators described in this article provide a sampling of provider-based healthcare performance.