Performance Measurement is the development, application, and use of performance measures to assess achievement of performance standards.
Choosing the correct performance measures is essential to performance management success. Public health organizations may consult national data sources and tools that include proven data sources and measures or develop their own procedures to measure performance. Each organization needs to identify the method of measurement that will work best in the context of their organization.
Public health organizations may want to keep several questions in mind when establishing and collecting performance measurement data. For example:
- Are there defined methods and criteria for selecting performance measures?
- Do quantitative measures have clearly established benchmarks for success?
- How are data on the selected measures collected, and how often?
Through thoughtful consideration of both the measures and the mechanisms for collecting data about the measures, organizations can improve their performance management capacity.
One of the keys to using performance measurement to assess whether performance standards have been met is a dependable data collection process. The data should be reliable and clearly illustrate how well the performance standards are met as an indicator of whether a program or intervention is working. Organizations need to thoughtfully consider how to report the data most effectively, and to whom.
Performance Measurement Resources:
Improving the Public's Health in New Hampshire - A Performance Management Approach
This manual provides numerous examples of performance measures used by a variety of programs and describes how these measures were selected.
Healthy Connecticut 2020 Performance Dashboard
This dashboard from the Connecticut Department of Public Health, built from the Results Based Accountability framework, provides updates and graphs of trend data on indicators from the Connecticut State Health Improvement Plan.
National Quality Forum
The National Quality Forum offers a variety of information about how to choose measures, as well as examples of measures that have been endorsed by stakeholders in public health.
Behavior Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS)
BRFSS provides state specific and some city and county level data about behavioral risk factors.
Community Commons
Community Commons is a free, online mapping and data tool for social determinants of health at state and local levels to advance prevention, wellness, and public health related efforts.
Community Health Status Indicators (CHSI)
CHSI provides a variety of key health and social determinants of health indicators at the country level along with comparisons to peer counties, which can assist in setting performance standards. A complete update and reorganization of this site was launched in early 2015.
County Health Rankings
Ranking the health of nearly every county within individual states, the
County Health Rankings measures the overall health of each county in all 50 states on the many factors that influence health, and has been used to garner support among government agencies, healthcare providers, community organizations, business leaders, policymakers, and the public for local health improvement initiatives.
Health Department Survey Data
Applying Performance Measurement to Public Health Policy Use this performance measurement tool developed by PHF and the American Public Health Association
to develop performance measures for your policy activities. This tool offers an introduction to performance measurement within the context of performance management.