This I found to be rather interesting since our experience has been so spotty for so many years. The UK model is probably the simplest and the most elegant I have ever seen. What makes it work is the voluntary commitment that the people make to each other and the fact that there is no attempt to mandate that the institutions use the results of the effort. Customers actually want to use these contracts because they feel they own a piece of the action. Benchmarking in devolved settings.
Devolution is roughly the English equivalent of our notion of a decentralized system.
In the UK, however, the implication is that decentralization and devolution are incredibly similar. My opinion is that this is not the case. Regardless, as we decentralize in the States, our ability to benchmark will be challenged. They were acutely interested in our experience and Dick Mooney s great work clarifying some of our results will, I believe, be a real hit with our friends across the ocean. The toughest nut to crack based upon the dialog was again getting to unified data elements which measure the same outcomes as opposed to staying singularly focused on outputs.