The researchers evaluated the effect of the Medicare Hospital Value-based Purchasing (HVBP) program on quality of care during the program’s first year of implementation. Specifically, the researchers compared how participating hospitals and non-participating hospitals performed on incentivized clinical process and patient experience measures, before and after the HVBP program began. Among hospitals that participated in the program, the researchers also tested for differences in performance on incentivized and non-incentivized quality measures, before and after the HVBP program began. The goal of this project was to provide an early evaluation of the HVBP program that will assist policymakers in refining this strategy in the future.