October 5, 2016
WASHINGTON, DC—The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) is proud to announce its selection as a new Pediatric Quality Measures Program (PQMP) grantee by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
The PQMP was established in 2011 under Title IV of the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act, with the aim of increasing the portfolio of consensus- and evidence-based pediatric quality measures available to public and private purchasers of children’s health care services. NCQA led the initial phase of the PQMP, National Collaborative for Innovation in Quality Measurement (NCINQ), to develop new and innovative pediatric measures.
As part of a four-year grant, NCQA will implement the pediatric quality measures focusing on judicious use of antipsychotic medications among children and adolescents, and depression management in adolescents. The measures, developed by NCINQ, have been accepted for national reporting in NCQA’s Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS®).
The new project (NCINQ II) will focus on implementing the measures and demonstrating improvement. NCQA will work with states and health plans to apply the measures in real-world settings, to assess how they work when used on the front lines of care. The NCINQ team includes New York University and Youth MOVE National, and breaks new ground by creating a role for young adults who have experienced behavioral health care needs, to serve as advisors to other young people and their families.
This effort is funded through the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015, (Public Law 114-10 Section 304(b)), which provided continued funding for the Pediatric Quality Measure Program to build knowledge and evidence to support performance monitoring and quality improvement for children in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program.
For more information, visit http://www.ahrq.gov/policymakers/chipra/pqmp.html