The document discusses a vision for using performance measurement to drive organizational change and improvement in healthcare. It summarizes several IOM reports calling for a national performance measurement system. The author argues that such a system needs to take an organizational perspective and account for contextual factors. An organizational model of performance is presented to illustrate how factors like strategy, structure, environment and resources interact. The author suggests organizational research can help by examining these contextual effects, providing implementation roadmaps and aiding assessment of different types of learning and change processes. Key research questions are proposed around how the local context influences implementation and effectiveness.