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The past decade or so has seen considerable progress in the development of measures that assess many important areas of clinical care and organizational performance. Although the current patchwork of measures has gaps and limitations, sponsors of health care quality reports have access to many measures that move the quality agenda forward and help consumers make choices. The information in this section can help report sponsors better understand their options and select measures that meet the needs of their audience.

• The Six Domains of Health Care Quality: Review the Institute of Medicine’s quality assessment framework and learn how frameworks help consumers understand quality information.
• Types of Quality Measures: Understand how quality measures are classified as representing structure, process, and outcomes.
• Understanding Data Sources: Learn about data available from administrative databases, medical records, patient surveys, and standardized clinical databases as well as the advantages and challenges of using these sources for reporting.
• Selecting the Right Measures for Your Report: Learn how to determine whether a measure is both “good” and appropriate for reporting to your audience.
• Measures of Quality for Different Health Care Settings: Review the most common standardized measurement sets for collecting data and preparing comparative information.
  • Hospitals
  • Health Plans
  • Physician Practices
  • Nursing Home, Home Health, and Hospice
• Quality Measurement Resources: Find out about national programs and organizations that provide guidance about measures used in different health care settings.

Related Resources:

• . This Decision Guide from the Agency for Healthcare Quality and Research addresses critical issues related to selecting and adopting measures of quality of care and resource use. Specifically, the Guide offers answers to 26 questions that are frequently asked by leaders and stakeholders in community quality collaboratives across the country.
• : This report from the National Quality Forum (NQF) provides an overview of current public reporting efforts, suggests opportunities for coordination among all the public reporting initiatives, and identifies gaps in measurement in the context of the NQF’s integrated framework.