The search is on for coherent performance measurement in healthcare organizations. Has Quebec reached a crossroads?

Abstract

Objective: This research looks back at a 10-year period (2004-2014) to understand the development and outlook for healthcare organization performance measurement in the Quebec healthcare system, in an attempt to objectivize relationships within the configuration of its principal institutional actors. Methods: This is a qualitative study combining the use of official publications and fieldwork based on 13 semi-directed interviews, conducted in 2014, with informers in key performance measurement positions within the Quebec healthcare system. Results: Performance measurement has generated tensions, both internally between different branches of the Department of Health and externally against a strong coalition of external institutional actors, which were defending a shared homogeneous vision of performance. Four major types of political power plays, owing to the power struggles around performance models and indicators, converged around the same implicit issue of the need to attain greater legitimacy in order to impose an authoritative frame of reference.