(The Joint Commission: Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois) -- Health care organizations, practitioners, purchasers, oversight bodies, and the public all rely on performance data to determine priority areas for quality improvement, evaluate performance, and make informed health care decisions. Yet, most performance measurement efforts operate in isolation from one another, rarely provide a consistent picture of overall quality, and represent a significant cost to the health care industry, according to a call for action recently released by The Joint Commission.

“Development of a National Performance Measurement Data Strategy” proposes a framework for creating a data infrastructure to support performance measurement activities that improve the quality of health care in the United States. The solutions proposed by a special roundtable focus on creating a data infrastructure that addresses consumer expectations for data privacy, supporting a data highway that allows for data sharing and linkages.

“The time has come to harness the many performance measurement efforts by creating a data infrastructure so information can be shared and translated into powerful tools for decision-making and improvement,” says Mark R. Chassin, M.D., M.P.P., M.P.H., and president of the Joint Commission. “Although there are significant challenges, the work of the roundtable clearly shows that this is a matter of will.

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