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In 2020, the Immediate Office of the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) sought to identify measures that could improve the ability of the United States and other countries to learn from international comparisons of health system performance. To inform the identification of measures for international comparison that could eventually be proposed to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), RAND Corporation researchers worked with a diverse group of 15 experts in quality measurement, clinical care, and health economics to generate and prioritize potential measure constructs that align with HHS priorities and are particularly promising for international comparisons. Eight measure constructs were identified as having the most promise for international comparison, but they will require additional development work to establish their operational definitions and specifications to ensure that any measure developed is valid and feasible for international comparisons of health system performance. This report is designed to lay a strong foundation for these future refinements by noting the degree of consensus among experts about the importance, scientific acceptability, perceived feasibility, and usability of measure constructs; summarizing the strengths and limitations of the measure constructs; and providing additional context that can be useful for informing the selection of measure constructs that might ultimately be developed into measures and proposed to OECD for consideration.

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With the goal of creating job opportunities that would otherwise not exist, many states, including Pennsylvania, have attracted film production by offering competing incentives that lower costs. Although Pennsylvania's Film Production Tax Credit (FPTC) has attracted film productions to Pennsylvania and, specifically, to Pittsburgh, the economic contribution of the resulting industry and the factors restricting or catalyzing the industry's growth are unclear. In addition, there remains uncertainty around how Pennsylvania, specifically, can remain competitive in attracting film productions and what resources may enhance the growth of the film industry in the state. To address these uncertainties and inform future policy debates, the authors of this report conducted a mixed-methods study consisting of an environmental scan, semi-structured interviews, and quantitative analysis. The findings of this study describe a nuanced picture in four areas: (1) the filming location decision, (2) the economic contribution of the film industry, (3) the film industry workforce, and (4) state film policy. Drawing on these findings, the authors discuss their broader implications and recommend strategies to retain or enhance the competitiveness of the film industry in Pennsylvania. The results and recommendations of this report are intended to inform the decisionmaking of stakeholders both at the state level (including state legislators and government officials) and at the local level (including officials in the state's film offices, city and county economic development offices, local workforce development boards, and local educational institutions).

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"U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) spending on private-sector services has increased steadily over the past several decades to more than 60 percent of its overall budget. This growth has led to greater congressional interest in DoD's contracting practices, including the number of contracts for inherently governmental functions, contract management, contractor accountability, and contract waste, fraud, and abuse. Specifically, it has sought more oversight of the services purchased and the labor used to provide them, with the goal of increasing DoD's buying leverage and improving contractor performance. In 2008, legislation mandated the development of the DoD Inventory of Contracted Services (ICS), a database to collect information on the activities performed under DoD service contracts. Since that time, Congress has expressed concern about the methods DoD uses to collect this information and whether the ICS is useful to policymakers and DoD stakeholders. RAND was asked to conduct the congressionally mandated review of the system's data, gaps between the ICS data and congressional and other stakeholder needs, and whether the same or more useful information could be obtained from other sources. The study also included an assessment of legislative intent in mandating DoD to establish the ICS, a detailed evaluation of the current ICS metrics and data collection procedures, the development of alternative metrics drawing on different data sources, and illustrative analyses testing the validity of these alternative metrics and their corresponding data outputs."--Publisher's description.

Defense contracts --- Public contracts --- Contracting out --- Inventories --- Management. --- United States. --- Procurement --- Evaluation.