The Opportunity
The National Quality Strategy (NQS) serves as a blueprint for achieving a high-value healthcare system. There are three interdependent aims that guide the NQS: better care, affordable care, and healthy communities; measurement supports driving and tracking progress towards the aims. While significant advances have been made in measuring progress on the aims of better care and healthier communities, progress in the affordable care aim has slowed. One challenge is the lack of a clear definition of affordability as it is a broad concept that can be interpreted in many ways. A first step in addressing cost of care is defining “cost to whom” and how it should be measured. This work will focus on affordability from the perspective of patients and consumers and explore how to measure affordability in a way that is meaningful to patients and consumers.
About the Project
With funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), the National Quality Forum (NQF) will examine measurement concepts for affordability from the patient perspective. With the guidance of an expert panel, NQF will produce a white paper to explore more patient-oriented cost measures. Key questions include:
- What types of measures are most important to consumers?
- What types of data will be needed?
- How can we best leverage patient-reported data?
- What factors influence a consumer’s perceptions of whether care is affordable?
- How can this information be reported to address consumer needs for discerning affordable and efficient providers?
The white paper produced through this work will focus on understanding how patients use cost data and will provide a path way towards more effective patient-oriented measures addressing affordability.
Process
This project will be guided by an Expert Panel of representatives from across the spectrum of healthcare stakeholders. The Expert Panel will collaborate with the white paper author and NQF to develop a pathway toward the development of more patient-oriented cost measures.
Funding
This project is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
For information about the availability of auxiliary aids and services for NQF’s federally funded projects, please visit: http://www.medicare.gov/about-us/nondiscrimination/nondiscrimination-notice.html.
Related NQF Work
Contact Information
For more information, please contact Erin O'Rourke at 202-783-1300 or via email at affordability@qualityforum.org.