Aiming Higher: Results from a State Scorecard on Health System Performance, 2014

Developed to follow the National Scorecard on U.S. Health System Performance, published in 2006, the State Scorecard assesses state variation across key dimensions of health system performance: access, quality, avoidable hospital use and costs, equity, and healthy lives. The findings document wide variation among states and the potential for substantial improvement—in terms of access, quality, costs, and lives—if all states approached levels achieved by the top states. leading states outperform lagging states on multiple indicators and dimensions; yet, all states have room to improve. The report presents state performance on 32 indicators, with overall rankings as well as ranks on each dimension. The findings underscore the need for federal and state action in key areas to move all states to higher levels of performance and value. Support for this research was provided by The Commonwealth Fund. The views presented here are those of the authors and not necessarily those of The Commonwealth Fund or its directors, officers, or staff, or of The Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance Health System or its members. This report, related state tables, and other Fund publications are available online at www.commonwealthfund.org. To learn about new publications when they become available, visit the Fund Web site and register to receive e-mail alerts. Commonwealth Fund pub. no. 1030.