Health Innovation Summit Wrap Up: What’s Next?

November 13, 2024 · Becky Kolinski

The Health Innovation Summit was a huge success! Thanks to all attendees, for dedicating three days to connecting and learning with us; to our amazing speakers, for sharing their insights and success stories; and to the NCQA team, for making this event happen.

Here are some key takeaways from each of the summit’s four themes: Digital Quality, Value-Based Care, Health Equity, Behavioral Health.

Digital Quality

The transition to digital measurement is accelerating. As organizations gain real-world experience with digital measures, we are diving deeper into the technical details and developing concrete action plans. As one attendee put it, “Last year we were in the 100-level introductory courses, and this year we’re into the 300-level courses.”

Key Takeaways

• Organizations are engaged and excited about the benefits and opportunities of digital quality measurement.
• We’re starting to see what the digital future will look like—and we’re identifying practical applications for quality measurement.
• Access to clinical data is still a barrier, especially for smaller health plans and health systems.
• Variations in results between traditional reporting and digital reporting are primarily due to data mapping and other data-related issues.
• We need better definitions of auditing and reporting for quality measures and downstream reporting to other systems, such as population health.
• Organizations can get involved in the digital community by accessing free resources through the HL7 Da Vinci Project and NCQA’s Digital Quality Hub.

Moving Forward

• NCQA released new guidance about the transition to digital HEDIS measurement that includes a phased-in approach based on organizational readiness.
• We announced a proposed plan to phase out the HEDIS Hybrid reporting method by MY 2029.

Value-Based Care

The industry is aligning around value-based care and organizations are developing successful payment models. Many clinicians say they like value-based care models better than fee-for-service, but there are challenges to full adoption.

Key Takeaways

• Success in value-based care requires stronger partnerships between payers and care delivery organizations.
• Clinicians can’t carry the entire burden—it must be a team effort.
• Patients must be at the center of value-based care arrangements; measures must reflect their needs and goals (e.g., PRO-PMs).
• We need to make data collection and workflows more efficient to reduce the burden on patients and clinicians.
• Actionable and accurate data, including patient attribution, are imperative to drive change.
• Phased implementation is best for supporting patients and care teams while achieving quality and performance measurement goals.
• Don’t wait for all systems to be perfect—get started and iterate as you go.

 Moving Forward

• NCQA plans to incorporate person-centered outcome measures into HEDIS for MY 2027. We are beginning to test the measures with Dual-Eligible Special Needs Plans.
• As the digital quality transition progresses, we’ll have more timely and accurate data for value-based care initiatives.

Health Equity

Organizations are elevating equity as a key strategic priority and are building equity metrics into employee incentive programs. Equity leaders are forming a community for equity action and are sharing their experience and expertise to drive positive change.

Key Takeaways

• Health equity is moving from concept to action. Many presenters shared concrete examples of programs, incentives and initiatives they have in place.
• Equity doesn’t have to be in your job title for you to be an equity leader at your organization. Everyone has a role!
• People in formal equity leadership positions need appropriate resources, and must be empowered to do the work.
• Collecting and managing high-quality equity data remains a challenge—but it’s one that many organizations are tackling successfully.
• Many equity leaders are being asked to make the business case for equity and to frame it in ways that resonate across audiences (e.g., finance, human resources, care delivery).
• We need to build equity into the design of new tools for digital interventions so we don’t have to retrofit later.

Moving Forward

• NCQA is adding race/ethnicity data to the CAHPS sample frame. NCQA will compare participating plans’ data with self-reported data from CAHPS respondents, and will share a confidential report with plans on their data’s quality.
• We’re continuing to build a supportive community for health equity leaders—plan to attend NCQA’s Health Equity Forum on April 7–8, in Baltimore, MD.

Behavioral Health

Organizations are struggling with workforce shortages, data challenges and workflows as they move toward implementing measurement-based care. Collaboration is key to building a better behavioral healthcare system—and we heard several success stories at the summit.

Key Takeaways

• Behavioral health is linked with physical health and social/environmental needs—organizations and systems must work together to treat the whole person.
• Collaborative care is a successful strategy to support integration of behavioral and physical health while maximizing existing resources.
• Behavioral health network adequacy standards require a different approach from those for medical services because the workforce is not consistently defined and licensure requirements vary.
• Organizations are successfully integrating peer and community health workers into traditional care settings—such as emergency departments—but it takes persistent effort to achieve results.
• We need more investment to improve the behavioral health data infrastructure and enable practitioners to use EHRs to track and close gaps in care.
• Although we’re making progress in the opioid epidemic—the number of overdose-related deaths in the U.S. declined for the first time since 2020—overdose deaths remain high in marginalized and underserved communities and communities of color.

Moving Forward

• NCQA is developing a measure of behavioral health network adequacy that looks at the percentage of participating practitioners who submitted zero in-network claims, claims for 1–4 individuals or claims for 5 or more individuals during the measurement period.
• NCQA launched CCBHC Accreditation for certified community behavioral health clinics; surveys begin with the first cohort in January.
• We’re working with the Institute for Exceptional Care on a grant-funded project to identify quality measures that will support health outcomes for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Continue Learning With NCQA

Additional NCQA courses related to our key themes:

• The Behavioral Health Care: Organizing for a Value-Based Landscape webinar is for anyone interested in behavioral health integration strategies to improve quality of care.
• The Health Equity Education Series can help you build infrastructure to sustain health equity initiatives beyond Accreditation.

Mark your calendar for the next Health Innovation Summit, October 13–15, 2025, in San Diego, CA!

HEDIS is a registered trademark of the National Committee for Quality Assurance.

CAHPS is a registered trademark of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.