On July 30, the Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform hosted a Capitol Hill briefing on how better quality and cost measures can be implemented nationally, and what it will take to design and build the necessary infrastructure to support better, more timely performance measurement.

The discussion drew on activities of the Quality Alliance Steering Committee and its High-Value Health Care Project, and kicked off with a dialogue between Engelberg Center Director Mark McClellan and Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Director Carolyn Clancy on the need for quality measurement and reporting. A panel discussion followed on how regional efforts can support a national strategy that both contains cost and improves care. The event was supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Senior Program Officer Michael Painter provided welcoming remarks.

• View Mark McClellan's Presentation

Also, a policy brief released as part of the event explored the essential elements of a nationwide capacity for measuring and reporting on quality and costs. Relatively little attention has been directed toward the reform needed to ensure that such measures are implemented quickly, effectively, and consistently, and how measures can then be used to improve health care. This brief outlines an infrastructure that would permit the systematic collection and analysis of summary data that measures value, while protecting individual privacy.