• Investigation
Sanitary health quality measures are used to understand the impact of interventions when applied to real world health care systems and arrangements. These measures are used to evaluate the effectiveness of treatments and understanding access to care, care processes, perceptions of care patients and other factors that can affect the results of patients and their satisfaction with treatment.
Measures of health care can help patients and clinical doctors understand and choose care options that best meet their needs. They can also be used to monitor and improve interventions, promote optimum practices and enhance care for everyone.
The three main types of measures used to assess the quality of health care are:
- Quality structural measures: These measures evaluate whether the provider or body has the infrastructure and ability required to provide care to patients.
- Procedure Quality Measures: These measures evaluate whether patients receive the care they need.
- Quality measures of results: These measures Evaluate whether patients receiving patients with care improve their health and function.
The use of quality measures that focus on results is common to many natural health conditions. For example, quality measures focused on the results of diabetes may measure the number of diabetes patients who meet the goals of blood sugar control after treatment. However, very few measures of quality focus on results have been developed for mental illnesses.
Which studies are funded by NIH?
To fill this gap, National Institutes of Health have funded six projects for the development, testing and validation of quality measures focused on mental health results. In the context of these projects, researchers are obliged to participate and submit their measures to regulatory or government bodies, such as the Medicare and Medicaid Center or the Battelle Partnership to measure quality. Approval of these regulators helps to facilitate the implementation and use of a measure by health plans, healthcare payers (such as insurance companies), clinicians and patients.
NIH’s support for these projects is one of the many ways in which the Institute works to increase the accessibility and availability of evidence -based mental health therapies.
The six funded projects are:
- Quality of measures to promote prevention and suicide care in health systems
Researchers will develop a set of suicide ideas and attempts (deadly and non -deadly) outcome measures. They will also develop measures to control and evaluate suicide risk, security planning and specialty monitoring. - Measuring what matters to results with the focus of the patient’s care for people with severe mental illness
Researchers will create results focusing on the quality of care directed by the goal of people with serious mental illness, including schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. In the care directed by the target, patients and clinicians work together to create personalized therapeutic goals based on the desired results of patients. - Personalized Quality of Life Measurement
Researchers will develop an evaluation to compare the quality of life of patients who face different physical and mental conditions. A measure that can be used to evaluate the quality of life in general in many mental and physical health conditions does not exist, making this an important gap area. - Developing and testing a pediatric measure of quality of stress results
Project Researchers will develop two complementary quality measures of pediatric stress. The former will measure whether patients respond to stress treatment and the second will evaluate whether patients’ stress. Researchers will also determine whether the stress results vary according to the social risk factors and other characteristics of patients, then determine the best way to apply and use quality improvement measures. - Determination and treatment of bias in depression and anxiety measures
Researchers will examine the characteristics of patients who lead to lower healthcare ratings among populations facing mental health inequalities. The researchers will then use what they learn to create new measures that focus on the effects of depression and anxiety with reduced prejudice and improved accuracy. - A measure that focuses on the quality of the quality of mental health based on standard symptoms reported by the patient
Researchers will develop a new quality of mental health quality focusing on the result, which can be used in different mental health diagnoses. The measure, based on reports of routine symptoms from patients, will be able to consider the results of the provider, clinic, organization or level of the health plan, making it useful in different environments and populations.
