A Health & Human Services Department advisory panel has developed quality measure concepts for the second stage of meaningful use " such as a requirement for reporting adverse drug events " but has not started setting specifics for the health IT incentive criteria.
The Health IT Policy Committee's quality measures work group has arranged the 2013 measures among five domains, care coordination, patient safety, patient and family engagement, efficiency and population and public health.
Among the panel's tasks is to identify what is missing in the current quality measures for 2011 and come up with new and different measures, said Dr. Farzad Mostashari, deputy national coordinator in the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, at the panel's meeting Oct. 28.
At the same time, "we have to make sure that we don't fall into the trap that leads into a proliferation of measures that are highly specific to the domain area rather than being as broadly applicable as possible," he said.
Policymakers must balance going forward "with boldness while making sure we also recognize and appreciate what is available in the near term," he added.
Christine Bechtel, a work group member and vice president of the National Partnership for Women and Families, a non-profit group that fosters consumer healthcare access, said second stage measures should address important healthcare problems, especially when the quality data are combined and analyzed.
The adoption of such measures can foster coordination among various providers, care settings and conditions. "For instance, services that promote healthy life style promote efficiency, population health, patient and family engagement as well," she said.
The work group is also wrestling with how to solve difficult issues with methods of quality measurement, panelist said.
These include standardized data collection and harmonization of measures across different technology platforms; the types of measures that are best to be used as baselines for follow-up over time; the numerous barriers to routine medication adverse event reporting; and ensuring that the complexity of quality measures is in line with the capabilities of electronic health records.
The panel will present its recommended quality measure concepts to the policy committee later this month.
