Abstract
The development of quality measures has gained increasing attention as health care reimbursements transition from fee-for-service to value-based payment models. As behavioral health care moves towards integration of services with primary care, specific measures and payment incentives will be needed to successfully expand access. This study uses a keyword search to identify 730 quality indicators that are relevant to behavioral health and general medical health. Measures identified have been coded and grouped into domains based on a taxonomy developed by the authors. The analysis reveals that quality measures focusing on general medical conditions exceed those focused on behavioral health diagnoses for evidence-based treatments, patient safety, and outcomes. Furthermore, measures predominantly concentrate on care during or following hospitalizations, which represents a minority of behavioral health care and does not characterize the outpatient settings that are the focus of many models of integrated care. The authors offer recommendations for future steps to identify the quality measures that can best evaluate the evolving behavioral health care system.
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Matthew L. Goldman declares that he has no conflict of interest.
Brigitta Spaeth-Rublee has received grants from The Commonwealth Fund and the governments of Australia, Canada, England, Germany, Ireland, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, and Scotland.
Abraham D. Nowels has received grants from The Commonwealth Fund.
Parashar Pravin Ramanuj is a 2015–2016 UK Harkness Fellow in Health Care Policy and Practice and is supported by The Commonwealth Fund, a private independent foundation based in New York City.
Harold Alan Pincus declares that his research has been funded by the National Institute of Mental Health; the National Institute on Drug Abuse; the National Institute on Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse; the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration/Center for Mental Health Services; the Veterans Administration; The John A. Hartford Foundation; Atlantic Philanthropies; the National Center for Research Resources/National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences; the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services; the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ); the governments of Australia, Canada, England, Germany, Japan, Ireland, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Scotland, and Taiwan; the Graham Boeckh Foundation; the National Institute on Nursing Research; the New York State Health Foundation; The Commonwealth Fund; the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute; and the United Hospital Fund. Dr. Pincus has been a consultant or on an advisory board for the National Committee on Quality Assurance, the National Quality Forum, the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, Tufts University, the University of Michigan, the University of Miami, Mathematica Policy Research, Manila Consulting, The Commonwealth Fund, the John A. Hartford Foundation, the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors, and Montefiore Hospital. He also has received payments for presentations from New York University, the University of California at Davis, Northeastern University, Queens Hospital Center, North Shore Long Island Jewish Health System, Stanford University, and the Weill Cornell Medical Center and is a Member, Council on Quality Care, American Psychiatric Association.
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This publication was supported by the Commonwealth Fund (grant number 20141104). The views presented here are those of the authors and not necessarily those of The Commonwealth Fund or its directors, officers, or staff. Additional funding was provided by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Institutes of Health, through Grant Number UL1 TR000040. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.
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This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.
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Goldman, M.L., Spaeth-Rublee, B., Nowels, A.D. et al. Quality Measures at the Interface of Behavioral Health and Primary Care. Curr Psychiatry Rep 18, 39 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11920-016-0671-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11920-016-0671-8