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Health Care Quality Measurement

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Increasingly, tools and surveys are employed to determine current and optimal levels of health care service and performance, and ultimately to improve the levels for each. RAND helps policymakers, health care leaders, and practitioners determine cost-effective and accurate ways to measure the quality of health care being provided, and then recommends ways to improve the level of health care quality.

News Release

Low-Value Care Among Medicare Recipients Drops Only Marginally Despite Effort to Curb Practices

Feb 16, 2021

Examples of low-value health care include prescribing opioids for acute back pain and antibiotics for upper respiratory infections. Despite efforts to better educate clinicians and discourage wasteful care, spending on such services among Medicare recipients dropped only marginally from 2014 to 2018.
Essay

A New Way to Capture the Patient Experience

May 2, 2019

Researchers have developed a more effective and reliable way for patients to provide narrative feedback about the care they receive. When the right questions are asked, patients' answers can help health care providers better understand the patient experience and learn how they could improve.

Explore Health Care Quality Measurement

Research Brief

Improving Behavioral Health Care for Remote Service Members: Three Key Priorities

Service members who are geographically remote from a military treatment facility may face unique challenges accessing high-quality behavioral health care. RAND research identified three key priority areas for the U.S. Department of Defense.

Apr 5, 2021
News Release

Geographic Barriers to Behavioral Health Care May Put Remote Service Members at Risk

Remote service members may face challenges accessing and receiving high-quality behavioral health care through the Military Health System, putting them at a greater risk for negative outcomes related to behavioral health issues.

Mar 31, 2021
Report

Geographic Barriers to Behavioral Health Care May Put Remote Service Members at Risk

Remote service members with PTSD, depression, or substance use disorder face challenges accessing high-quality behavioral health care through the Military Health System. They see primary care and private-sector providers for such care and are less likely to receive psychotherapy.

Mar 31, 2021
Report

RAND Technical Expert Panel Medicare Advantage (MA) and Part D Contract Star Ratings, November 12, 2020 Meeting

On November 12, 2020, the RAND Corporation convened a Technical Expert Panel (TEP) web meeting to gather input about social risk factors and approaches for ensuring accurate performance measurement.

Mar 16, 2021
Report

RAND Technical Expert Panel Medicare Advantage (MA) and Part D Contract Star Ratings, November 19, 2020 Meeting

On November 19, 2020, the RAND Corporation convened a Technical Expert Panel (TEP) web meeting to gather input about stratified reporting of performance and approaches to reduce disparities in Medicare Advantage (MA) and Part D Contracts.

Mar 16, 2021
Research Brief

Chiropractors in the United States Rarely Perform Spinal Manipulation for Chronic Lower Back or Neck Pain When It Is Inappropriate

Across a sample of patients seen by chiropractors, spinal manipulation was rated by experts as appropriate for most patients with chronic lower back pain and as equivocal (uncertain) for most patients with chronic neck pain.

Mar 12, 2021
Journal Article

Quality Measurement of Serious Illness Communication: Recommendations for Health Systems Based on Findings from a Symposium of National Experts

Patients, clinicians, and health systems increasingly align around the importance of high-quality communication in serious illness. We offer recommendations to advance serious illness communication quality measurement.

Mar 2, 2021
Report

Measures and Methodology for International Comparisons of Health Care System Performance: Final Report

RAND researchers worked with 15 experts in quality measurement, clinical care, and health economics to generate potential measure constructs that could improve the U.S. ability to learn from international comparisons of health system performance.

Feb 24, 2021
Journal Article

National Quality Forum Guidelines for Evaluating the Scientific Acceptability of Risk-adjusted Clinical Outcome Measures: A Report From the National Quality Forum Scientific Methods Panel

Our goal is to promote the transparency of NQF evaluations, improve the quality of performance measurements, and engage surgeons and all other stakeholders to work together to advance the science of performance measurement.

Jan 29, 2021
Journal Article

Improving The Accuracy Of Hospital Quality Ratings By Focusing On The Association Between Volume And Outcome

The goal of this exploratory analysis was to examine the changes in hospital star rankings for aortic valve replacement when shrinkage targets based on hospital case volume are used instead of the standard CMS approach.

Jan 28, 2021
Journal Article

A Comparison of the Injury Severity Score and the Trauma Mortality Prediction Model

We compared the performance of the Trauma Mortality Prediction Model with the Injury Severity Score and other measures of injury severity in a single cohort of patients.

Jan 28, 2021
Journal Article

Ranking Trauma Center Quality: Can Past Performance Predict Future Performance?

This article explores whether trauma center quality metrics based on historical data can reliably predict future trauma center performance.

Jan 28, 2021
Journal Article

Variation in Readmission Rates Among Hospitals Following Admission for Traumatic Injury

We wished to determine if hospitals differed in their adjusted readmission rates following an index hospital admission for traumatic injury.

Jan 20, 2021
Journal Article

Variability in Case Durations for Common Surgical Procedures

This is an exploratory study to quantify the facility-level variation in surgical case duration for common surgeries.

Jan 20, 2021
Journal Article

Quality of Quality Measurement: Impact of Risk Adjustment, Hospital Volume, and Hospital Performance

Monte Carlo simulation was used to examine the accuracy of performance profiling as a function of statistical methodology, case volume, and the extent to which hospital or physician performance deviates from the average.

Dec 31, 2020
Journal Article

What Can the National Quality Forum Tell Us About Performance Measurement in Anesthesiology?

In this article, we describe the current state of performance measurement in anesthesia care at the national level and highlight gaps and opportunities in performance measurement for anesthesiologists.

Dec 30, 2020
Journal Article

Does Mandating Nursing Home Participation in Quality Reporting Make a Difference? Evidence From Massachusetts

In this study, we investigate one of the mechanisms that may detract from the effectiveness of health care quality report cards: voluntary versus mandatory participation of nursing homes in public quality reporting.

Dec 30, 2020
Journal Article

Health System Affiliation of Physician Organizations and Quality of Care for Medicare Beneficiaries Who Have High Needs

This article tests the hypothesis that health systems provide better care to patients with high needs by comparing differences in quality between system-affiliated and nonaffiliated physician organizations.

Dec 29, 2020
Journal Article

Waste in the Medicare Program: A National Cross-Sectional Analysis of 2017 Low-Value Service Use and Spending

In this analysis, we provide updated national estimates of low-value service use and spending in Medicare in 2017.

Dec 29, 2020

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RAND Topic:
Health Care Quality Measurement

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