Fickel J; Academy for Health Services Research and Health Policy. Meeting.

Abstr Acad Health Serv Res Health Policy Meet. 2001; 18: 39.

LBJ School of Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin, P.O. Box Y, Austin, TX 78713-8925, Phone: (512) 243-1587, E-mail: jjfickel@mail.utexas.edu

RESEARCH OBJECTIVE: Quality assessment activities are conducted in state Medicaid managed care programs using a variety of quality indicators. The extent that these activities produce information that is relevant and useful for policy actions which may influence quality of care is not clear. This study describes knowledge, attitudes, and practices of state Medicaid administrative policymakers regarding the information they obtain from various measures of quality.STUDY DESIGN: Structured interview are conducted with a cross-section of administrators from 50 state Medicaid programs to obtain a full range of perspectives on quality of care assessment. Factors hypothesized to influence administrator use of information from quality indicators include knowledge of various quality indicators, perceptions of usefulness of the resulting information, attitudes towards quality assessment, and relevant aspects of the policy environments.POPULATION STUDIED: Administrators from state Medicaid programs which use managed care delivery models.PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Based on preliminary findings, most state Medicaid administrators are familiar with a number of different methods for assessing quality of care. However, some do not correctly understand what the measures are intended to indicate. Also, several of the quality indicators that are commonly collected have not produced information that is useful for the policy situations with which administrators are faced. Barriers to use of the information include aspects of the policy environment, such as limited financial and human resources, as well as features of the quality indicators, such as long time lags for production of information. Many types of indicators are perceived to suffer from problems with implementation, although most of these are perceived to be potentially correctable. Of eight types of quality indicators most often collected by state Medicaid agencies, beneficiary satisfaction surveys are perceived as most useful overall.CONCLUSIONS: The findings suggest that several types of factors influence whether the information from quality indicators is put to use or not. These factors include the wide range of administrators' knowledge about quality indicators, aspects of the policy environment, and characteristics of the indicators themselves.IMPLICATIONS FOR POLICY, DELIVERY, OR PRACTICE: The results suggest that use of information from quality of care indicators could be increased through several means. These might include education of state Medicaid administrators on quality indicators available to them, training of agency staff in quality assessment methodologies, and focusing limited resources on the most relevant and productive methods of assessment.PRIMARY FUNDING SOURCE: Pending

Publication Types:

• Meeting Abstracts

Keywords:

• Data Collection
• Environment
• Humans
• Managed Care Programs
• Medicaid
• Physical Examination
• Quality Indicators, Health Care
• Research Design
• economics
• methods
• hsrmtgs

Other ID:

• GWHSR0001458

UI: 102273133

From Meeting Abstracts