Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program serve nearly 46 million children which is 33% of the kids in the US- which means that these programs are a huge leverage point for improving health outcomes. Measuring the effectiveness of these programs is critical to improving their performance and in providing the information needed to design policy interventions.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services plays a key role in promoting quality health care and as part of their accountability standards they have a core set of health care quality measures for children in Medicaid and CHIP that by applying a standardized set of measures designed to measure and improve the quality of care.
The 2017 Child Core Set includes 27 measures among the following domains of care: 1) Primary Care Access and Preventive Care; 2) Maternal and Perinatal Health; 3) Care of Acute and Chronic Conditions; 4) Behavioral Health Care; and 5) Dental and Oral Health Services.
CMS released this year’s “Chart Pack” last week, which includes an analysis of state performance on 19 of the reported measures. Arizona reported data from 11 of the indicators. I Haven’t had the time to dive into the details, but if you’re interested in learning more you can explore the performance measures and the results in the September Report
