ISQua's 4th International Summit on Indicators, Buenos Aires, October 2001.

Abstract

ISQua, The International Society for Quality in Health Care, works to provide services to guide health professionals, health providers, researchers, agencies, policy makers and consumers to achieve excellence in healthcare delivery to all people and to continuously improve the quality and safety of care. ISQua is a global, not for profit, voluntary, open membership organization. In 2001, it had members in over sixty countries. Performance measurement with feedback is generally acknowledged as an important methodology in facilitating improvement in quality in health care. Some months before the Buenos Aires Indicators Summit, ISQua’s Executive Board confirmed the Society’s on-going interest in pursuing the development of global interest in indicators of patient care and an ISQua program of work to achieve and manage this. ISQua had observed a mushrooming of interest around the world in the development of performance measures and other types of indicators. This was felt to be consistent with worldwide trends towards the measurement of processes and outcomes which can lead to performance improvement. The words ‘performance indicator’, ‘clinical indicator’ or just ‘indicator’ were seen by ISQua’s Indicators Steering Committee as interchangeable in use. For the Buenos Aires program, a clinical indicator was defined as ‘a flag or measure of the clinical management and/or outcome of care’. In this definition the term ‘clinical’ refers to all members of the clinical team. The ISQua leadership and the Indicators Steering Committee also referred to indicators as ‘measures …