Author Listing of Relationships With Industry and Other Entities (Relevant) 46 Appendix C. Reviewer Listing of Relationships With Industry and Other Entities PREAMBLE The American College of Cardiology (ACC) and the American Heart Association (AHA) performance mea- surement sets serve as vehicles to accelerate translation of scientific evidence into clinical practice. Measure sets developed by the ACC and AHA are intended to pro- vide practitioners and institutions that deliver cardiovas- cular services with tools to measure the quality of care provided and identify opportunities for improvement. Writing committees are instructed to consider the methodology of performance measure development1,2 and to ensure that the measures developed are aligned with ACC/AHA clinical guidelines. The writing commit- tees also are charged with constructing measures that maximally capture important aspects of quality of care, including timeliness, safety, effectiveness, efficiency, 3 equity, and patient-centeredness, while minimizing, when possible, the reporting burden imposed on hos- pitals, practices, and practitioners. Potential challenges from measure implementation may lead to unintended consequences. The manner in which challenges are addressed is dependent on several factors, including the measure design, data collection method, per- formance attribution, baseline performance rates, report- ing methods, and incentives linked to these reports. The ACC/AHA Task Force on Performance Measures (Task Force) distinguishes quality measures from perfor- mance measures. Quality measures are those metrics that may be useful for local quality improvement but are not yet appropriate for public reporting or pay- for-performance programs (uses of performance mea- sures). New measures are initially evaluated for poten- tial inclusion as performance measures. In some cases, a measure is insufficiently supported by the guidelines. In other instances, when the guidelines support a mea- sure, the writing committee may feel it is necessary to have the measure tested to identify the consequences of measure implementation. 