As our region looks back toward the founding of Pittsburgh 250 years ago and ahead toward a promising but uncertain future, it is important to keep in mind that facts and the context in which they are understood are essential to making good decisions.

This is true in the public sector and the private sector. It is true in the decisions we make for ourselves and in those made by companies and government agencies. And this is the fundamental idea behind the creation of the nonprofit organization Pittsburgh Indicators.

We believe a readily available, rock-solid data base about our region, accompanied by contextual information, can improve individual and institutional decision-making in our community. At the Web site www.pittsburghtoday.org, you will find the current evolution of our work.

I spend a good part of my time working on health and medical care issues so I want to use an illustration from that work to communicate the importance of facts and context in decision making.

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OPINION 250:

To commemorate Pittsburgh's 250th anniversary, the Post-Gazette Forum section will run articles every other week this year that explore how the region can build on its past to make a better future. Unsolicited viewpoints also are welcome for possible publication in the newspaper or at post-gazette.com. Send e-mail to: opinion@post-gazette.com (Please include Opinion 250 in the subject line.)

• • • Post-Gazette coverage of the city's birthday

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If I told you that 95 percent of the people treated in the intensive care unit of a hospital do not get an infection from a central line -- a catheter inserted into a vein to provide medication or nutrition -- you might think that is a remarkable achievement. After all, how many things in your life work well 95 percent of the time? On the other hand, if you happen to be part of the unfortunate 5 percent, you would have a different view. Making this information specific to where we live helps make the point.

Between July 2002 and June 2003, 1,753 patients were cared for in the intensive care units of a Pittsburgh-area hospital. Thirty-seven of those patients contracted a central line infection (which is a better rate than the national average). But here is another fact; 19 of those patients died. The hard numbers speak to us in a different way than the percentages do.

Now here is another fact. By introducing and practicing the ideas of continuous learning and continuous improvement, this local hospital reduced infection rates and deaths so that in the first ten months of 2006, only three of 1,832 patients were infected, and none of them died. (The hospital in this illustration is Allegheny General. The complete story can be found in "The Journal on Quality and Patient Safety," September 2006).

This level of information regarding infections in every medical institution in our region is not yet available on our Web site, but it is our aim to keep adding regional indicators for the economy, the arts, health care, the environment, government and other sectors to provide facts that are actionable and as close as possible to real time. Some of what you will find on the site already is real time. For example, look at the air-quality information in the environmental section.

Pittsburgh Indicators is a work in progress and, ideally, it should remain so. To be the vibrant tool we envision, it will inform and influence, and users from all sectors will identify new dimensions of community life that can benefit from being included.