The Board's conclusion was that the nation would be well-served at this juncture by the foundation establishing the Commission on a High Performance Health System, charged with developing recommendations for changes in clinical care, organizational, administrative, information, and payment systems that are essential if this country is to meet fundamental equity and quality issues in health care. The proposed Commission and associated new initiatives are promising mechanisms for bringing the Fund's strengths to bear at a critical juncture in the evolution of American health care.
(1)The Fund's continuing commitment to communicating the results of its work to influential audiences was evidenced in 2004-05 by further enhancements of its Web site, cmwf.org. These included the addition of "Quality Matters" and "States in Action" newsletters; a bimonthly e-newsletter "The Commonwealth Fund Digest" of Fund-sponsored research on health policy and practice; and improvements in the site search engine. With approximately 43,000 unique visitors and one-quarter million Web page views each month, the site is proving to be a highly efficient and productive vehicle for distributing and publicizing the more than 300 Fund reports, newsletters, media releases, peer-reviewed journal articles, and data releases produced by the foundation's grantees and staff each year.
To help inform health policy making and its own program strategies, the Fund launched during the year, with Harris Interactive, an online bimonthly survey of health care opinion leaders. The survey is designed to provide an ongoing measure of expert views of health policy priorities and options for addressing key issues, and strengthens the Fund's capacities for helping inform policy debates with new, timely information.
