Cost and Resource Use 2016-2017 Final Technical Report 

Despite high levels of healthcare spending, the U.S. continues to rank below other developed countries for health outcomes including lower life expectancy and greater prevalence of chronic diseases. Healthcare quality is also an issue with the U.S. falling behind other developed countries in the quality domains of effective care, safe care, coordinated care, and patient-centered care. Improving the efficiency of healthcare has the potential to simultaneously reduce the rate of cost growth and improve the quality of care provided. Cost measures are a key building block to understanding healthcare efficiency and value. NQF began endorsing cost and resource use measures in 2009 and continues to expand its work in this area of measurement. NQF has evaluated both condition-specific and non-condition specific measures of total cost, using both per-capita or per-hospitalization episode approaches. This project involved the review of three non-condition specific measures of cost and resource use. This report details the evaluation of three cost and resource use measures undergoing maintenance review. All three measures were endorsed.