While value-based purchasing (VBP) programs have proliferated in the past two decades, quality measures have become increasingly important as they are employed to calculate the “value” of care. The health care industry, however, is struggling with a quality measurement dilemma.The central question we ought to answer is: What is the most crucial aspect of “value” of care that we can measure for value-based arrangements without needing an excessive number of quality measures or risking too few?
Michael Chernew and Mary Beth Landrum suggested a targeted supplemental data collection approach, in which only low performers of a core set of metrics would be required to provide additional data on other measures, reducing costs while avoiding gaps in a core measure set. Michael McWilliams proposed other strategies that focus on physicians’ intrinsic motivation and professionalism, without necessarily relying on quality measures. In this commentary, we propose a third approach: measuring what matters most to patients from a whole health perspective.
