"Executive
Summary
Purpose of the Workshop
On 16 March 2000, the
National Public Health Partnership Group (NPHP) auspiced a workshop to
provide advice to the newly formed National Health
Performance Committee on:
- How the performance information and performance benchmarking
framework for the Australian Health system can have a population health focus or
perspective;
- What criteria should be used to select population health
indicators;
- The development work is required, building on the wide range
of health outcome and performance indicator development already occurring in population
health, to produce and report against selected indicators.
Forty-five participants from all jurisdictions and New
Zealand participated in the workshop. They explored five questions:
- What do we want a national performance framework to do for
the whole health system?
- What do we want a performance framework to do for population
health?
- If a population health performance indicator set does
nothing else it must…?
- What criteria should be used to select indicators for the
performance framework?
- What process should take this work forward?
Objectives of the performance framework
Participants agreed that the main
purpose of the Performance Framework was to improve performance and achieve better health
outcomes. Therefore, the Framework needs to identify the things that matter most in
the health system and measure performance in a way that leads to more informed decision
making and improved accountability to parliaments and the wider community. Features and
functions of a national performance framework should be to:
- Contribute to improving the performance of the health
system;
- Monitor the key features of the health system, assist in
understanding inter-relationships between elements of the system, and provide
‘warning signs’;
- Ensure indicators are always linked to an operational arm so
there is clarity about how indicators relate to services, strategies, policies etc;
- Influence change across the system;
- Provide accountability to governments and communities;
- Be owned and have accepted validity by relevant sectors;
- Aid investment decisions and measure returns on investment
over time;
- Use consistent language and concepts;
- Be flexible enough to be able to incorporate emerging
issues.
The structure of the performance framework
Workshop participants were provided with a wealth of background material on performance frameworks from Australia
and overseas. These included:
- Leading Health Indicators for Healthy People
2010, IOM 1999
- Development of national public health
indicators: discussion paper. AIHW 1999
- Draft performance measurement framework for
the Australian Health System. Consultancy by KPMG for the National Health Ministers
Benchmarking Working Group January 2000
- Framework of indicators for the public
acute-care hospitals. National Health Ministers Benchmarking Working Group 1999
- National Health Information Management Group
Working Party proposed outcome indicator framework. AIHW & HFS 1999
- Canadian Health Information Roadmap
Initiative indicators, CIHI 1999
Participants examined these frameworks and noted that
several different indicator frameworks
- Canadian Health Information Roadmap Initiative indicators,
- the National Health Information
Management Group framework and
- the AIHW National Public Health Indicator framework)
had core elements in common.
Also, the
- National Health Ministers Benchmarking Working Group Framework
for the public acute-care hospitals
fitted into one of these core elements. These core elements could potentially provide a
strong basis for a performance framework for Australia’s health system."
See the full original at: http://www.dhs.vic.gov.au/nphp/perfinds/execsumm.htm