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Mathematica Contributes to Health Care Quality and Affordability with New Quality Measures Projects
Contact: Jennifer de Vallance, (202) 484-4692
WASHINGTON, DC—December 13, 2012—Meaningful and usable performance and quality measures are essential tools to improve quality and affordability in our health care system. Evidence-based, scientifically developed and tested quality measures can help policymakers and stakeholders determine whether new models for care delivery and payment substantially improve health outcomes. Broad implementation of these measures gives providers information that supports their efforts to improve care; it also enables purchasers and health plans to reward providers based on quality of care and patient outcomes, rather than service volume.
Mathematica Policy Research has strong experience developing comprehensive hospital and provider quality measures, assisting with measures implementation, and evaluating their effectiveness. Our health experts assist in the design and specification of quality measures and help partners and clients convert measures for use with health information technology systems. We also analyze quality information to help assess the effect of different care approaches. Notably, we have developed and implemented quality measures for use in national and local pay-for-performance initiatives for both hospitals and physicians.
Recent contracts awarded to Mathematica build and expand upon our work in this area. The projects include assisting in the development of hospital readmission measures for children; providing feedback on clinical performance and costs to physicians and practices; and identifying innovative health information technology, process, and data management solutions. In this research, Mathematica's health experts will use the highest quality data, evidence, and methodologies to assist physicians, hospitals, and other health care providers in their efforts to improve health care quality and outcomes.
- The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Physician Feedback and Value-Based Modifier (VBM) programs provide comparative quality and resource use performance information to medical group practices and physicians as part of Medicare's efforts to improve the quality and efficiency of medical care. In a large project, Mathematica will work with Northrop Grumman Corporation to continue to support CMS's efforts to enhance the value of health care services provided to beneficiaries. Mathematica will provide technical support to CMS in the development and implementation of a VBM, conduct ad hoc research analyses on areas such as risk adjustment and application of attribution and benchmarking rules, and support measure development and endorsement activities.
- Calculated using hospital inpatient administrative data, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) quality indicators (QIs) are used by health care providers, patients, and other stakeholders to measure hospitals' quality of care for a number of conditions, such as cardiac and surgical care as well as patient safety and satisfaction. The Improving AHRQ QIs project will examine issues related to the validity of the QIs, including potential bias by hospital characteristics and use of the measures in public reporting and valued-based purchasing programs.
- Under a contract with the Children's Hospital of Boston, Mathematica will help improve outcomes for children by analyzing Medicaid Analytic EXtract (MAX) data to assist in the development of pediatric hospital readmission quality measures. Mathematica will tap into its broad experience analyzing MAX data and provide technical assistance based on its expertise in the development and implementation of 30-day readmission measures for CMS. AHRQ and CMS hope to use these measures to publicly report comparative pediatric readmission performance among states and hospitals in the future.
- Another project for AHRQ will support two efforts to enhance the value of the agency's health care quality measures. Mathematica will develop databases that can provide benchmarks to help users easily find and compare their health care quality data. Working with the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA), the Johns Hopkins University, and Oregon Health and Sciences University, Mathematica will also create a framework that identifies and demonstrates relationships between improvements in outcomes and improvements in health care processes.
About Mathematica: Mathematica Policy Research, a nonpartisan research firm, provides a full range of research and data collection services, including program evaluation and policy research, survey design and data collection, research assessment and interpretation, and program performance/data management, to improve public well-being. Its clients include federal and state governments, foundations, and private-sector and international organizations. The employee-owned company, with offices in Princeton, N.J.; Ann Arbor, Mich.; Cambridge, Mass.; Chicago, Ill.; Oakland, Calif.; and Washington, D.C.; has conducted some of the most important studies of education, disability, health care, family support, employment, nutrition, and early childhood policies and programs.