The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' (CMS') Quality Improvement Roadmap announced the agency's intention to promote the development and dissemination of quality measures and information as a basis for supporting effective quality improvement efforts. Many states have already adopted the use of nationally recognized performance measures and utilize them in a number of areas including incentive programs, public reporting, and the development of policy reports. Multiple requests for data made by different payers and the unique requirements of these requests, plans and providers are seeking greater consistency in performance measurement.

CMS works with other Federal and State government entities, accreditation bodies, insurers, and professional societies to achieve consensus on common evidence-based measure sets that have wide acceptability in the healthcare industry. Through these efforts, we can provide states with a menu of validated and tested measures that are consistent with standard industry requirements and that can be generated often through the use of existing databases.

Measures should address various delivery systems and care settings, such as the home, community, hospitals, nursing homes, and ambulatory care settings. CMS is actively involved with partner organizations in the development or compilation of measures suitable for both public reporting and pay-for-performance initiatives. CMS works with organizations, such as the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO), National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA), Hospital Quality Alliance (HQA), Ambulatory Quality Alliance (AQA), National Quality Forum (NQF), medical specialty societies and many other organizations and government agencies including the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), in the development and compilation of measures that have been tested and found to be reliable and valid in assessing quality. CMS continues to explore measures that are relevant to populations served by payors including Medicaid and SCHIP programs.

Downloads
Guide to Quality Measures : A Compendium Vol 2.0  [PDF, 1.8 MB] 13 State Core Measure Reporting Summary [PDF, 775 KB]
Related Links Inside CMS
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Related Links Outside CMS
National Registry of Evidence-based Programs and Practices (Mental Health and Substance Abuse) Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Evidence-based Practice Centers and Reports CMS' Fistula First Breakthrough Initiative AHRQ's Effective Practices Home Page National Quality Measures Clearinghouse

Page Last Modified: 04/24/2008 2:41:28 PM
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