Performance Babel

The story of the Tower of Babel has some relevance in the health and human service field. In the Biblical parable, the destruction of the tower results in the world’s peoples not speaking the same language and not being able to understand each other. In health care, the “language” of performance isn't working. There aren’t enough standardized performance measures to allow easy comparison—of anything. (CMS Stars is a good first step—but it is focused on Medicare.)

That is what I thought when I was reading the report released earlier this year, California Department Of Health . . .