IRIS Health Metrics (MS Excel)

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CHMI and IRIS partnered to develop standard definitions for relevant social and financial performance metrics commonly tracked by healthcare organizations serving low-income communities. The goal is to provide a tool for impact investors, funders, and program implementers to help answer this exact question. Please see this overview document for more information on the metrics development process.

To ensure that the metrics are broadly relevant, well-defined, and feasible for health enterprises to report against, we're inviting you to provide your input and reactions to this metrics draft as part of our open comment period, running through December 2013. Based on your input, edits will be made and these metrics will be made public in the early 2014.

On Tab 2, "Health Catalog", please review each metric and indicate if your organization finds the metrics terms, definitions, and usage notes clear and easy to understand.  If 'No' please provide a brief description as to why.  If 'Yes' please indicate if any further clarification or guidance is needed to guide users.  You can record your response for each metric in column "N".  Users should note that the metrics are tagged by the core performance dimensions they help measure, listed in columns A through H. Please note that Tab 3, "Glossary", provides definitions for key metric terms; and Tab 4, "IRIS Full Catalog", provides all existing IRIS metrics for those interested in understanding the format and type of metris shared by IRIS outside of health care.

Please send this document with your comments saved on Tabe 2 to Christina Synowiec at

How to use these metrics:

  1. Choose from within this catalog of metrics. There is no single combination of metrics that is right for every organization; this set is designed as a catalog that investors and investees can use to select the most appropriate metrics for their work.
  2. Adapt metrics to specific healthcare organizations. While the metrics are meant to be generally applicable to organizations delivering healthcare services, they should be tailored to reflect an organization's areas of focus.
  3. Use the metrics to measure an organization's outputs and evaluate its effectiveness. Most metrics in the catalog are measures of activities or outputs of a healthcare organization. Outputs serve as a foundation for measuring health outcomes and health impact.
  4. Use metrics to help investors identify successful healthcare organizations. Comparable indicators of organizational outputs can help program implementers to demonstrate impact and compare their performance with similar organizations.