Update to a Systematic Review on Quality Measures for Rheumatoid Arthritis

This work aims to provide an update on a previously published systematic review on quality measures (QMs) in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) to inform future measure development and endorsement efforts.

We searched published and grey literature sources from January 2018 to July 2023. Included sources were limited to those that targeted patients with RA, either exclusively or alongside other rheumatic conditions, and that were guided by a clear consensus-building methodology. We extracted QMs and categorized them into topic and subtopics. Extracted measures were then reviewed for similarity with the previously extracted set from a published systematic review. Nonduplicative measures were labeled as "new."

The updated search resulted in 2395 citations, from which 339 studies were selected for full-text review. From these, a total of 6 studies met the inclusion/exclusion criteria, resulting in the extraction of 156 QMs, along with 31 additional QMs extracted from 87 grey literature sources. Among the 187 extracted QMs, most were duplicative and/or similar to previously developed measures (68%, n = 127). Sixty were identified as new. New QMs were primarily structural (50%, n = 30) and process measures (33%, n = 20). New QMs frequently addressed the topic of healthcare delivery (35%, n = 21).

Although this review identified new QMs that reflect various reassuring trends in healthcare quality assessment, most were duplicative or similar to existing measures. This highlights the need for a centralized way to reduce redundancy in QM development efforts and to enable easy dissemination of QMs to optimize care for individuals with RA.