Mission:
To be an authoritative online resource about health system performance.

Background:
Launched in 2006, the Performance Snapshots Web site was developed through a grant from the Commonwealth Fund to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Program on Health Outcomes. It is designed to foster a common understanding of problems in the U.S. healthcare system, identify primary areas of concern, provide a framework for communication among stakeholders, and garner the necessary resources and attention — in both the public and private sectors — to make the system better. Snapshots is based on a series of chartbooks published by the Commonwealth Fund and draws on the latest research and best available data from a variety of sources, including studies in academic journals and reports by government agencies and private foundations.

Outstanding Web Features:
The site features a graph — or set of graphs — and related narratives on a single subject, such as childhood immunizations, displayed as a single performance snapshot. The narrative describes the subject's importance, summarizes findings and their implications, and offers suggestions for improvement. Most snapshots also include links to related snapshots. Visitors to the site may browse snapshots by area of interest, performance domain, collection (a set of related snapshots), or title. In addition, they may conduct simple searches by entering keywords on the site's main pages. Visitors may also create their own custom snapshots collections.