About the Project
The Health System Measurement Project brings together trend data on a limited set of key health system measures from multiple data sources to provide a picture of the status of the U.S. health system.
The Project focuses on ten critical dimensions of our health care system covering the availability, quality, and cost of care, the overall health of Americans, and the dynamism of the system. The Project examines the evolution of these aspects of our system over time. It also assesses the status of these dimensions of the system with respect to subgroups of the population, with a particular emphasis on vulnerable populations.
HHS’s Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation has developed the Health System Measurement Project to ensure a robust monitoring system through which people inside and outside government can assess how the system is doing and identify areas that need improvement. One important purpose of the Project is to track the consequences of implementation of The Affordable Care Act across this broad set of dimensions of the health system.
About the Topical Areas
The measures are divided into the following ten topical areas:
- Access to Care
- Cost and Affordability
- Coverage
- Health Information Technology
- Innovation
- Population Health
- Prevention
- Quality
- Vulnerable Populations
- Workforce
About the Functionality
With this web tool you can:
- Quickly view data on a given topic from multiple sources
- Compare national metrics with the same metrics measured at the regional and state level
- See time trends for up to 10 years
- Compare data across variables such as income, race, age, and insurance coverage type
- View data in both graphical and table format
- Explore the data, create custom visualizations, and export to other media
About the Measures
Measures that are included the Health System Measurement Project are updated annually or as new data becomes available. Look for recent and upcoming data updates on the home page.
Where possible, measures were selected to align with existing HHS strategic planning and performance measurement efforts including the Department’s Strategic Plan, the Government Performance and Results Act, Healthy People 2020 and the National Strategies for Quality and Prevention.
About the Data Sources
The Health System Measurement Project builds primarily on data collected from existing HHS and other Federal surveys. Data have been provided by the following agencies:
- Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
- Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS)
- Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
- Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA)
- Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE)
- Office of the National Coordinator (ONC)
- Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)
Updates to the Site
The Health System Measurement Project website is updated periodically. To see a record of updates that have been made to the site, please review the Updates Page.
Citations
To see a measure citations, please review the Citations Page.
Questions?
If you have questions about how to navigate the site, please review the User Guide. For other questions related to the measures or the data displayed on the site, please contact the Health System Measurement Project Administrator at the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation.