Instead of adding quality metrics, harness fewer high-quality ones to improve outcomes and reduce provider burden

STAT May 2, 2024
Katherine Gergen Barnett, Lara F. Terry

Ensuring excellent quality and outcomes is the essential goal of medical care. To achieve it, a multitude of quality metrics have been added to clinicians’ work. They include things such as controlling blood sugar for people with diabetes, ensuring that eligible adults are screened for colon and breast cancer, and guaranteeing that children are up to date on their vaccines and are receiving topical fluoride treatments.

Quality metrics were designed to help improve both patients’ outcomes and providers’ performance. But the number of quality metrics has ballooned. In a safety net hospital like ours, providers must account for 60 different quality metrics during each patient visit, many of which are “standalone,” or required by just one payer.

While most quality...

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