ABSTRACT

Clinical process measures are the bread and butter of healthcare quality measurement. The intervention context of the value-based measurement framework separates clinical quality measures from measures of waste, efficiency, and safety. Within the range of clinical interventions subject to value-based reporting, the cascade of care provides a way to view healthcare processes as a continuum from prevention to early identification, treatment, and recovery. When setting performance goals, the benchmark targets will also have a similar cascade, with higher expected completion rates for prevention and identification interventions than for treatment and recovery. The goal for the applied population health program is not to rewrite any of the overlapping measures, but to develop a harmonized operational measure set that will support consistent clinical practice, use of electronic health record tools, and reporting across an organization. Quality programs often include one or more quality measures requiring laboratory monitoring for patients with a diagnosis of diabetes.