NCQA Project Promotes Quality Care

The National Committee for Quality Assurance's (NCQA) recently-announced Person-Driven Outcome Measures Project will seek to improve care quality and encourage person-centered care by helping older people with complex health needs meet their goals, reports Health IT Analytics . The demonstration project will be conducted over the next three years and involve more than 800 participants. "In order to achieve truly person-centered care, we have to incorporate what matters most to older adults into every healthcare conversation," says SCAN Foundation CEO Bruce Chernof. "This project will show how health systems can ask what matters in a sustainable way, and the value this knowledge brings to both provider-person interactions and the overall quality of care." An earlier study entailed NCQA's development of a strategy for collecting person-driven outcomes using personalized and standardized person-reported outcome measures to monitor care goals over time. It determined this approach was viable and advantageous to discussions about care planning for both provider and participant. It also showed the importance of having specific care plans and a system deployed to follow up and change these plans when needed. The Person-Driven Outcome Measures Project will more fully test these strategies across organizations and demonstrate the value of quality measures stemming from the use of person-driven outcomes. "By streamlining and focusing quality measures — and all of healthcare — on what truly matters to older adults living with complex conditions, we can achieve better outcomes and greater value for payers, providers, and older persons and their families," says John A. Hartford Foundation President Terry Fulmer.