The Commonwealth Fund's Commission on a High Performance Health System has been busy working to promote a health system that provides all Americans with affordable access to high-quality, safe care while maximizing efficiency in its delivery and administration.
In March, the Commission convened in San Francisco for the first of its three meetings of 2007. The group reviewed its upcoming reports on: 1) federal policy options to achieve savings and reinvest them in health system improvements, 2) state policies and practices shaping high performance health systems, 3) the 2007 State Scorecard, and 4) strategies for achieving health insurance for all. They visited Kaiser Permanente's San Francisco Medical Center to study the medical group's innovative health care initiatives and consider how they might inform efforts to build a better-organized, patient-centered care system for the U.S. The Commission also engaged in a discussion with the secretary of the California Health and Human Services Agency, Kim Belshé, about Governor Schwarzenegger's health care reform plan.
In April, the Commission released a data brief, Health Care Opinion Leaders' Views on Priorities for SCHIP Reauthorization. The report highlights the strong support of a diverse group of experts for expanding coverage and ensuring quality health care for low-income children when the State Children's Health Insurance Program is reauthorized later this year.
The Commission and the Alliance for Health Reform sponsored a briefing in April to inform congressional staff and other individuals working in health policy about ways to improve the quality of medical decision-making.
In June, the Commission will publish its first State Scorecard on U.S. Health System Performance. Closely following the National Scorecard, the State Scorecard is the first attempt to cover a set of indicators that span all core dimensions of health system performance—including healthy lives, access, quality, efficiency, and equity—in one comprehensive report. The State Scorecard endeavors to spur public policymakers and private stakeholders to improve health system performance at the state level, and to offer a metric for evaluating state health system performance.
For more information, please visit the Commission page on the Fund's Web site.