The Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency (CARE) Act gives funding
to cities, states, and other public and private entities to provide care and support
services to individuals with HIV and AIDS who have low-incomes and little or no
insurance. The CARE Act is a discretionary program that relies on annual appropriations
from Congress to provide care for low-income, uninsured, or underinsured
individuals who have no other resources to pay for care. Despite its successes, funding
has been insufficient to address all of the inequalities and gaps in coverage for
people with HIV.

In response to a congressional mandate, an Institute of Medicine committee was
formed to reevaluate whether CARE allocation strategies are an equitable and efficient
way of distributing resources to jurisdictions with the greatest needs and to
assess whether quality of care can be refined and expanded. Measuring What
Matters: Allocation, Planning, and Quality Assessment for the Ryan White CARE Act proposes
several types of analyses that could be used to guide the evaluation and
improvement of allocation formulas, as well as a framework for assessing quality of
care provided to HIV-infected persons.


Table of Contents


Front Matter
Executive Summary
1 Introduction
2 Overview of the HIV/AIDS Epidemic and the Ryan White CARE Act
3 Public Health and HIV/AIDS Surveillance
4 HIV Reporting Data and Title I and II Formulas
5 Estimating Resource Needs
6 Measuring Quality of Care
7 Findings and Recommendations
Appendix A: Acronyms
Appendix B: Financial Resources of States for HIV/AIDS Reporting
Appendix C: Analyses of the Sensitivity of the Formula Allocations to Underlying Changes in Input Data
Appendix D: Methodological Details of HCSUS Analyses
Appendix E: Tables of HIV/AIDS Quality Measures from Selected Sources
Appendix F: Biographies