Federal Health Officials Call For New Quality Measurement Framework

Anthony Brino | Government Health IT | June 6, 2013

Federal health officials are calling for a new framework in quality measurement, as the U.S. healthcare system prepares for what is hoped to be a new era of accountability.

“Meaningful quality measures increasingly need to transition from setting-specific, narrow snapshots, such as use of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors or angiotensin receptor blockers for patients with congestive heart failure, to assessments that are broad based, meaningful, and patient centered in the continuum of time in which care is delivered,” wrote CMS Chief Medical Officer Patrick Conway, MD, National Health IT Coordinator, Farzad Mostashari, MD, and AHRQ Director Carolyn Clancy, MD, in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The confluence of health reform, the transition to digital health records and the problems of high healthcare spending may suggest that the time is ripe to create a new measurement system with a “parsimonious set of core measurements,” they added.