Congress should authorize $100 million to $200 million in annual funding for the National Quality Coordination
Board from the Medicare Trust Fund, the report says. This amounts to less than one-tenth of 1 percent of annual Medicare expenditures.

The proposed board should report directly to the HHS secretary, and its members should be appointed to staggered terms by the president. The board should work with organizations already involved in developing measurement
and reporting tools, but it also should be free to contract with other groups to meet its objectives. It should provide Congress with an annual report on its activities and progress.

The HHS secretary should direct the department's agencies and encourage other federal health agencies to focus
on achieving the goals established by the National Quality Coordination Board. Also, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services should require providers participating in these programs to submit performance data to the board;
the Centers can use this information for quality improvement activities or as a basis for payment incentives and
public reporting.

Requested by Congress, this report is the first in a series that will focus on the redesign of health insurance to
accelerate the pace of quality improvement efforts in the United States. Subsequent reports will evaluate Medicare's Quality Improvement Organization program and analyze payment incentives.

The study was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The Institute of Medicine is a
private, nonprofit institution that provides health policy advice under a congressional charter granted to the National Academy of Sciences. A committee roster follows.Copies of Performance Measurement: Accelerating Improvement
will be available this winter from the National Academies Press; tel. 202-334-3313 or 1-800-624-6242 or on the
Internet at http://www.nap.edu. Reporters may obtain a pre-publication copy from the Office of News and Public Information (contacts listed in the beginning of this article).

[ This news release and report are available at http://national-academies.org ] equity, and patient-centered care.