Coordinating Center for Comparative Health System Performance

The initiative established three Centers of Excellence to study high-performing health care systems. These centers identify, classify, track, and compare health systems to reveal the factors that affect the use of evidence-based medicine and to identify best practices in the dissemination and implementation of PCOR.

The initiative also established a Coordinating Center, led by Mathematica, to leverage the expertise, infrastructure, and resources across the Centers of Excellence, with the goal of speeding the adoption of PCOR to improve care and efficiency within health systems. To achieve this goal, the Coordinating Center performed the following:

Facilitated coordination and collaboration

The Coordinating Center promoted collaboration between the Centers of Excellence to help align the concepts, data, methods, and measures needed to compare health system performance. 

Convened experts and stakeholders

The Coordinating Center convened a technical expert panel. These experts regularly met to advise AHRQ and the Coordinating Center about data and performance measures, types of evidence that were most useful to stakeholders, research gaps, dissemination products, and effective strategies for reaching stakeholders.