One way to improve performance measurement in healthcare is to move from process measures to outcome measures, according to a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation-funded report from the Urban Institute.
The report, "Achieving the Potential of Health Care Performance Measures: Timely Analysis of Immediate Health Policy Issues," includes five problems of relying on process measures to assess quality:
1. There are major gaps in what process measures can measure. For example, there are few measures to assess diagnostic errors and the appropriateness of diagnostic and therapeutic interventions, according to the report.
2. Process measures do not always predict outcomes. A recent study indicates CMS process measures for heart failure, heart attack and pneumonia may not predict mortality, according to the report.
3. A reliance on process measures may divert resources from other quality improvement areas. Assessments that lack outcome measures may cause healthcare providers to spend significant resources on process measures at the expense of outcome measures, which are an important indicator of quality, according to the report.
4. Process measures have financial limitations. The high cost of data collection limits how providers can measure processes, which may result in inaccurate data.
5. Process measures are difficult to update. Updating process measures based on new evidence is often difficult, leading to the continued use of process measures that may not be valid measures of quality, according to the report.
Moving to outcome measures is one of seven recommendations the authors made for meeting the full potential of healthcare performance measures.
CMS: 8 Quality Measures Will Remain on Hospital Compare
20 Quality Measures Improving, Worsening at the Highest Rate
The report, "Achieving the Potential of Health Care Performance Measures: Timely Analysis of Immediate Health Policy Issues," includes five problems of relying on process measures to assess quality:1. There are major gaps in what process measures can measure. For example, there are few measures to assess diagnostic errors and the appropriateness of diagnostic and therapeutic interventions, according to the report.
2. Process measures do not always predict outcomes. A recent study indicates CMS process measures for heart failure, heart attack and pneumonia may not predict mortality, according to the report.
3. A reliance on process measures may divert resources from other quality improvement areas. Assessments that lack outcome measures may cause healthcare providers to spend significant resources on process measures at the expense of outcome measures, which are an important indicator of quality, according to the report.
4. Process measures have financial limitations. The high cost of data collection limits how providers can measure processes, which may result in inaccurate data.
5. Process measures are difficult to update. Updating process measures based on new evidence is often difficult, leading to the continued use of process measures that may not be valid measures of quality, according to the report.
Moving to outcome measures is one of seven recommendations the authors made for meeting the full potential of healthcare performance measures.
More Articles on Quality Measures:
7 Recommendations to Optimize Healthcare Performance MeasurementCMS: 8 Quality Measures Will Remain on Hospital Compare
20 Quality Measures Improving, Worsening at the Highest Rate