Obstacles to employers' pursuit of health care quality.

Large employers' roles in improving health care quality are shifting away from value-based purchasing toward direct efforts to improve health care delivery within local markets. Although most large employers adopted the tools required for value-based purchasing, inadequate information on quality has frustrated employers and limited their ability to make choices based on quality. More recent quality initiatives aimed at directly improving local health delivery systems may be limited to specific markets where the largest employers can exert substantial influence.