The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) announced today that slides are available from the February 4th National Quality Strategy Webinar, entitled Using Payment to Improve Health and Health Care Quality. Payment models is one of nine strategic levers (see below) AHRQ recommends using to drive strategic quality improvement.
The National Quality Strategy is an initiative that was established pursuant to the Affordable Care Act to, “improve the delivery of health care services, patient health outcomes and population health.” The first strategy was published in 2011; this initiative represents a nationwide effort of public and private stakeholders to align quality measures with quality improvement activities.
There are six national quality strategy priorities that NQS asserts affect most Americans:
Patient Safety
Person- and Family- Centered Care
Prevention and Treatment of Leading Causes of Mortality
Affordable Care
Health and Well Being
Effective Communication and Care Coordination
The NQS offers nine Quality Strategy Levers (core business functions that organizations can use to pursue improvement across the aforementioned priorities):
Measurement and Feedback
Public Reporting
Learning and Technical Assistance
Certification, Accreditation and Regulation
Consumer Incentives and Benefit Designs
Payment
Health Information Technology
Innovation and Diffusion
Workforce Development
The webinar presentation discusses how the ability to economically benefit from value-based payment models is negatively impacted by the inability to create outcome measurement alignment. More calls for standardization and evidence-based practices.
Making the connection between payment and quality is indeed a slippery slope and the most contentious non-access aspect of the Healthcare Reform debate. Financial reward is the most expedient means available to align incentives. But because of the inherent structural weaknesses of our current delivery system those incentives can be counterintuitive to patient welfare. If you’re in the business of serving patients, it’s critically important that you understand the nature of this debate and how it continues to play out in policy and regulatory decision making.
Cheers,
Sparky
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The slides and transcript from the February 4 National Quality Strategy Webinar entitled “Using Payment to Improve Health and Health Care Quality” are now available on the Working for Quality Web site. This Webinar focused on how using payment, one of the nine National Quality Strategy levers, can help organizations align to the strategy and promote the three National Quality Strategy aims. |
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An updated National Quality Strategy toolkit is also now available. The toolkit includes updated graphic icons, templates for social media, newsletters, and blog content that organizations can use to share their alignment to and support of the National Quality Strategy. |
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If you have a story or case study you would like to share with the NQS audience, please email NQStrategy@ahrq.hhs.gov. |
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