A common lesson from jurisdictions around the world and Regional Health Authorities across the country is the need to identify clear equity targets, develop data and indicators to assess progress against the targets, create incentives and requirements to build meeting equity targets into ongoing accountability structures and ensure equity is build into overall performance management systems.
As Toronto hospitals developed health equity plans in 2009, one challenge they faced was a lack of clear indicators for operationalizing equity. The Centre for Research on Inner City Health at St Michael’s Hospital undertook comprehensive research and prepared a report on equity indicators in hospital settings. A related challenge was the lack of equity, diversity and social determinants of health relvant data; a workshop was held on existing sources and equity data requirements moving forward.
Moving forward, a key objective can be building equity into balanced scorecards and other planning mechanisms used by LHINs and their provider partners.
This links to notes on how to begin to build equity into performance management.