July 17, 2017
WASHINGTON, DC—The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) is proud to announce a $2.2 million grant to develop new measures and standards addressing serious illness care. The Serious Illness Care Measures Project is funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to develop components of an accountability program to evaluate serious illness care quality.
The project involves a learning collaborative of the following provider organizations:
- Aspire Health
- Bon Secours Health System, Richmond, VA
- Four Seasons Compassion for Life
- Legacy Meridian Health Palliative Care, part of Hackensack Meridian Health
- Palliative Care Services at Intermountain Healthcare
- OSF Healthcare System, OSF Medical Group Morton
- ProHEALTH – Optum
- UPMC Susquehanna, Supportive and Palliative Care
- University of Alabama at Birmingham, Center for Palliative and Supportive Care
- Salt Lake City Veteran Affairs Healthcare System, Home Based Primary Care
“Too often, care for seriously ill people does not align with their goals, preferences and values,” said Margaret E. O’Kane, NCQA President. “We are so grateful to the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation for its incredible support for this project that addresses complex patient populations, and to the learning collaborative sites, for their critical help in accomplishing this important work.”
Patients with serious illness are those with a life-threatening illness who also need support in coordinating care, managing symptoms, and making difficult treatment decisions. Serious illness care programs and health care models are emerging, but the systems needed to understand the quality of care being offered are not yet in place. The project goal is to ensure that patients receive quality care regardless of setting, program or type of clinician. The first phase of this project will develop structure and process measures to evaluate the quality of care provided to seriously ill patients, such as those who suffer from chronic conditions with functional limitations. A second phase is planned to develop measures that evaluate patient experience, outcomes, and concordance among care goals, care plans, and care delivered.
The project builds on NCQA’s work on care disparities in complex patient populations, and will consider how seriously ill patients should be addressed in a population health strategy.
The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation awarded NCQA a grant totaling $2,229,100 to carry out the first phase of this project over 18 months.