In most healthcare settings, workers attend weekly, monthly, or quarterly meetings where performances are reported, analyzed, and compared to goals in an effort to identify trends. Reports often consist of month-to-month comparisons with “thumbs up” and “thumbs down” icons in the margins, as well as the alleged trend of the past three months or the current month, previous month, and 12 months ago.

The data below are typical of the types of performance data that leadership might discuss at a quarterly review, in this case, a year-end review. Suppose these are healthcare data on a key safety index indicator—for instance, some combination of complaints, patient falls, medication errors, pressure sores, and infections. The goal is to have fewer than 10 events monthly (less than 120 annually). In line with the craze of “traffic light” performance reporting, colors are assigned as follows:
• Less than 10 = green
• 10–14 = yellow
• 15 or higher = red

Year-end review performance data

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