Measuring and improving quality and performance in an evolving health-care sector.

How can the challenges of quality measurement, assurance, and improvement be met at the national, state, and community levels? Can we sustain high levels of quality of care in an evolving health sector that wants to control costs and needs to extend access to millions of people? Can we find new ways to measure clinical practice performance and improve quality that will work more effectively in both the private and public sectors? All these questions demand answers in the context of contemporary circumstances.