The Importance of Population‐Based Performance Measures

Abstract

Crossing the Quality Chasm, the landmark report issued by the Institute of Medicine, identified six aims to guide quality improvement efforts in health care—safety, effectiveness, patient-centeredness, timeliness, efficiency, and equity—and recommended restructuring payment methods to align incentives to support these aims in the organization and delivery of health care services (Institute of Medicine 2001). The movement toward higher quality care has involved substantial leadership to create change, nationally and locally. Public and private stakeholders representing patients, physicians and other health care professionals, hospitals, health plans, employers, government, and regulators have collaborated in an effort to improve quality in the U.S. health care system. Many experts have argued that nationwide quality improvement will not take place without the establishment of national goals, common measures of performance, and transparency of information around quality and costs. As might be expected, early efforts of nationwide quality improvement have focused significant attention on the more reasonable and achievable of these tasks, the adoption of common measures of performance. Their adoption has been driven in part by the work of quality improvement organizations, such as the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, the National Quality Forum, and the National Committee for Quality Assurance, who have set performance measurement priorities and established consensus standards.