Putting Quality in the Spotlight at Academy Health, Seattle

June 21, 2023 · Andy Reynolds

Six NCQA leaders will share insights into quality measurement’s present and future at the AcademyHealth Annual Research Meeting in Seattle, June 24–27.

• Come to our sessions, if you’re attending the conference, or
• Contact us after it’s over, to find out what NCQA shared at the event.

New Insight Into the Geography of Diabetes Care

Does where a person lives affect their access to high-quality diabetes care?

Learn the surprising result at the poster presentation, Neighborhood Socioeconomic Disadvantage and Travel Time to National Diabetes Prevention Program: A Maryland Perspective, by Portia Buchongo, Applied Research Scientist for Health Equity.

Portia’s research, for her doctoral dissertation, found that people living in socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods have shorter travel times to National Diabetes Prevention Program locations, compared to people in wealthier neighborhoods.

Portia is interested in new approaches to health equity research and practice. If you are, too, and you attend the conference, she’d love to meet and collaborate!

Screening for Social Needs

Research Scientist, Adrianna Nava, will take part in a panel discussion on The Rationale and Readiness for “Social Care” Standards, Regulations and Quality Measures.

Adrianna was NCQA’s point person for our recent work with the White House on social needs. She’ll update the AcademyHealth audience on our:

• New Social Need Screening and Intervention measure.
• Development of measures related to social connection—an area where we’re in sync with the Surgeon General.

This will be Adrianna’s first trip to Seattle, and her first time presenting at an Academy Health event!

Health Equity How-To’s: Trade-Offs and Implementation

For a deep dive into designing and building health equity policies, attend Measuring Impact of Policy Strategies on Health Equity.

Senior Research Scientist, Rachel Harrington, will represent NCQA in that panel discussion.

Rachel first presented on health equity in 2021 at The Future of HEDIS^®: Digital Measures and Health Equity, and has led NCQA’s work to adapt HEDIS to evaluate health equity ever since.

She’ll have new insights to share in Seattle, including a “behind the scenes” look at how we weigh feedback, make trade-offs and implement health equity strategies.

Prioritizing Patients’ Perspective

Two of our top MD’s, Senior Vice President, Eric Schneider, and Senior Research Scientist, Caroline Blaum, will take part in the panel discussion, Expanding the Use of PRO-PMs in Quality Programs: Updates and Opportunities.

PRO-PMs—short for “patient-reported outcome-based performance measures,” are something Eric and Caroline have been working on for a long time.

Find out what’s new and what’s next in this critical frontier of quality measurement.

We’re Hiring!

We’re looking forward to the conference’s Contract Research Organization Job Fair.

As our job openings show, we’re eager to grow our team to support our exciting work in health equity, behavioral health and utilization—and in other quality topics.

Although the AcademyHealth event isn’t in Las Vegas, we’re feeling lucky! We think we’ll meet great candidates. “When I was coming out of graduate school, conferences like this helped me understand the range of opportunities and how my work could influence health care policy,” Rachel recalls.

The Bottom Line

• We’re excited about the Academy Health Annual Research Meeting because of its blend of research, policy making and implementation—a mix few conferences can match.
• We look forward to the opportunity to learn and the chance to meet people we can learn and collaborate with in the field.