Measurement of performance against cost and quality benchmarks represents a defining principle of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs). However, in order to successfully improve population health and patient satisfaction while controlling costs—in other words, to achieve the Triple Aim—ACOs require more than performance measurement.

An effective performance management system for ACOs would bring together all available data on their patient population from disparate sources, synthesize it into a coherent picture of population health and service cost/quality, and make it available to stakeholders from executives to providers where and when they need it in time to affect outcomes.

Looking ahead, a performance management system would be able to scale to accommodate ACO growth and consolidation, as well as future pay-for performance and value-based payment initiatives from Medicare, Medicaid, and other payers.