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Quality and Public Reporting

Performance Indicators - Frequently Asked Questions

What are indicators, and why are they so important?

  • Indicators are concise measures that give Trillium's Board and Management a sense of how we are performing - where we excel and where improvements can be made
  • Indicators help us understand our performance, compared to accepted standards and aim for continuous improvement

Note: Indicators are just one very specific tool for measurement and improvement.

What are the three key roles of measurement?

Indicators, like many other forms of measurement, can be used in three broad ways:

  1. Understanding: to assist Trillium in understanding how our system is working and how we might make improvements (research role)
  2. Performance: to monitor if and how a Trillium system is performing to an agreed standard (performance/managerial/improvement role)
  3. Accountability: to allow us to hold ourselves up to patients, the government and taxpayers and be openly examined as individuals, teams and organizations (accountability/democratic role).

Why do we publish performance indicators?

We support the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care’s belief that hospitals should share this information with the public.

By comparing how we are doing with health care targets, standards and averages, Trillium learns about our strengths and areas for improvement.

How is data calculated?

Definitions of the indicator and how it is calculated are included on each page.

We use national and provincial targets, standards and averages, or we set our own, based on published research, if they are unavailable.

To make the numbers easier to understand, we also add the following key:

Better Than Target

 
At Target
Needs Improvement
Unavailable
 

Technical definitions

How often are the performance indicators updated?

We post new information on a quarterly basis. Timing matches our reporting to Trillium's Board of Directors.

Targets for many performance indicators are not decided by us, but by provincial or national governments and agencies. We post new targets, standards and averages when they become available.