ABSTRACT
The business of health care is replete with enough information to make effective decisions toward achievement of desired financial, operations, and patient care outcomes. The problem is to decide what the most important information is for each desired outcome and how to use it. For example, the most important business information establishes the key indicators that should be used by the CEO, administrative staff, board of directors, and other health care leaders to monitor the business. Key indicators should be reviewed at each board of directors meeting; executive management systems must be built to optimize indicator performance; at year end, auditors validate key indicator business results; and, annual reports should reflect indicator performance in association with company vision, mission, and goals accom plished.1 All decision makers must know what the key indicators of their business success are, the meaning and value of relationships between and among indicators, and what continuous improvement action is needed to opti-
mize desired outcomes by aligning resources and operational focus on priori ties.2 The following material covers the concept and application of principles associated with alignment and defining the most important information.
