Performance Improvement in Health Care — Seizing the Moment

Abstract

We have an unprecedented opportunity to create a high-performance health system in the United States. Recent statutes, including the Affordable Care Act, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, provide the federal government with important powers for catalyzing improvement in service delivery. These new powers touch all the critical levers for advancing health system performance: payment policy, organization and infrastructure, public health, and essential information for health care decision making. The national performance-improvement toolbox is now well stocked.