Behavioral Health Measures Development and Inpatient and Outpatient Measure Maintenance

This project helps CCSQ develop measures for use in the Inpatient Psychiatric Facility Quality Reporting Program (IPFQR) and maintain quality measures across five pay-for-reporting programs for hospitals, outpatient hospital departments, and surgery centers. For IPFQR, Mathematica develops measures to assess quality of care provided to patients in IPFs. Mathematica reviews IPFQR measure concepts to identify those that are viable and supported by a strong evidence base. To develop those promising concepts into fully specified measures that are meaningful to patients and payers, Mathematica incorporates human-centered design approaches, balanced with careful examination of the evidence and rigorous testing. The Mathematica team also maintains and annually updates quality measures used in hospital-based pay-for-reporting programs. These include IPFQR, Promoting Interoperability, Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting, Hospital Outpatient Quality Reporting, and Ambulatory Surgical Center Quality Reporting. The measures include claims-based, chart-abstracted, and electronic clinical quality measures (eCQMs). The National Quality Forum endorsed five of these measures in the first year of the project. Mathematica and its partners effectively implement new and evolving eCQM standards and actively seek review and feedback from implementers and vendors to continually improve the specifications.