Information plays a central role In the ability of a health system to secure impoved health effectively and efficiently for its population. It can be used in many diverse ways, such as tracking public health, monitoring health care safety determining appropriate treatment paths for patients, promoting professional improvement, ensuring managerial control and promoting the accountability of the health system to the public. Underlying all of these efforts is the role performance measurement plays in guiding the decisions that various stakeholders — such as patients, clinicians, managers, governments and the public — make In steering the health system towards better outcomes.

In many respects, the policy agenda is moving away from discussions of whether performance measurement should be undertaken and what data to collect and is moving towards determining the best ways in which to summarize and present such data and how to Integrate it successfully into effective structures for governance.Yet, despite the proliferation of performance measurement initiatives, there remain a large number of unresolved questions about the collection and deployment of such information. Health systems are still experimenting