Measuring the Quality of Care in Different Settings

As HCFA initiates the next generation of health plan performance measures, the agency must address challenges associated with measuring the quality of care in all of the settings in which Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries obtain care. One such challenge will be to integrate health plan performance measurement and health care quality measurement initiatives, which have been proceeding separately. Of equal importance is the challenge to improve coordination across the diverse, setting-specific quality measurement initiatives now in various stages of development or implementation by HCFA. Finally, HCFA must address the challenge of improving the collection, reporting, and analysis of data needed for health care quality measurement. This article describes these challenges and suggests steps HCFA might take in addressing them.