Operational Details to Support 
Tiers of Service

A Provincial Approach To Planning Child And Youth Health Services 

System planning for children's health services is a major area of focus for Child Health BC and its provincial partners 
(health authorities, ministries, provincial organizations).

Partnering with clinicians and health-care leaders, British Columbia’s Tiers of Service framework establishes a unified understanding 
and a shared language for describing clinical services. This framework enables service planning for all patients across B.C. hospitals. 
Learn more about the provincial Tiers of Service framework.

Planning for Children's Health Services

To complement and build on the provincial framework, Child Health BC has additional resources that offer supplementary 
details focused on children’s health service and system planning in these major clinical areas:

• Pediatric Medicine 
      •  Pediatric Cancer
      •  Pediatric Diabetes
      •  Cystic Fibrosis (Adults and Children)
• Pediatric Surgery 
• Pediatric Emergency
• Pediatric Mental Health 
• Pediatric Development, Habilitation & Rehabilitation 
• Pediatric Critical Care
• Laboratory, Pathology & Transfusion Medicine (with Perinatal Services BC)

Collaborative working groups of multi-disciplinary clinicians, health professionals, family representatives and 
health-system leaders from across B.C. have worked together to create these resources, using the best available 
provincial data alongside evidence from the literature. These documents are routinely reviewed and updated.

Approach

Using Tiers of Service as tool for health system and service planning tool includes several key steps:

• Create and update provincial modules and companion guides for planning in major clinical service areas
• Conduct self-assessments based on new modules, refreshed modules, and between module development 
and refresh cycles
• Develop reports based on the self-assessment results 
• Use the self-assessment results and reports to inform system and service planning (Health authority/regional reports support 
system planning, facility/organizational reports support operational planning, and provincial summaries support provincial planning 
and quality improvement)

Watch an overview of Tiers of Service (video)