Between 2012 and 2016, the OECD conducted a series of in-depth reviews of the policies and institutions that underpin the measurement and improvement of health care quality in 15 different health care systems (Australia, Czech Republic, Denmark, England, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Northern Ireland, Norway, Portugal, Scotland, Sweden, Turkey and Wales). The 15 settings examined are highly diverse, encompassing the high-tech, hospital-centric systems of Japan and Korea, the community-focussed Nordic systems, the unique challenges of Australia’s remote outback, and the historically underfunded systems of Turkey and the Czech Republic, now undergoing rapid modernisation. What unites these and all other OECD health care systems, however, is that all increasingly care about quality. In a time of multiple, unprecedented pressures on health care systems – many of which are beyond health care systems’ control – central and local governments as well as professional and patient groups are renewing their focus on one issue that they can control and one priority that they equally share: health care quality and outcomes. In the OECD’s work to measure and improve health care system performance, health care quality is understood to comprise three dimensions: effectiveness, safety and patientcentredness (or responsiveness). These dimensions are applied across the key stages of the care pathway: staying well (preventive care), getting better (acute care), living with illness or disability (chronic care) and care at the end of life (palliative care). This conceptual framework is illustrated in Figure 0.1.