NQMC - Resources - Naming Measures

Naming Measures in NQMC

Background

The National Quality Measures Clearinghouse™ (NQMC), sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, recognized during the developmental phase of NQMC, that the titles of measures varied significantly across measure developers. Examining the structure of titles from each measure developer indicated that there was no standardized method of naming measures.

In order to capture the salient components of a measure in its title and to produce continuity in style for presentation purposes on the Web site, naming conventions were developed for each of the seven domains of measurement (Access, Outcome, Patient Experience, Population Health, Process, Structure, Use of Services) in NQMC.

The NQMC measure title is a synthesized form of the original measure name and/or measure description. Measures also capture the original name of the measure in the "ORIGINAL TITLE" field, found in both the Brief Summary and Complete Summary, to facilitate identification of developers' measures.

Each measure submitted and accepted into NQMC is renamed following the NQMC Naming Conventions described below.

Measure Naming Conventions

The NQMC Measure Naming Conventions are listed below, along with examples, by domain of measurement.

Domain	Conventions
Access	Access topic OR clinical service topic: metric plus description of the clinical service provided or the access issue. Examples: Adults' access to preventive/ambulatory health services: percentage of members who had an ambulatory or preventive-care visit. Waiting times - clinic: percent of outpatients seen in primary care at the facility in the previous 24 months who answer 'yes' to the question, "Did you get an appointment when you wanted one?"
Outcome	Disease/condition OR clinical topic: metric plus description of outcome. Examples: Acute myocardial infarction (AMI): percentage of patients who expired during hospital stay. Pain management in the long-term care setting: percentage of patients with documented reduction of pain symptoms.
Patient Experience	Patient experience topic: metric plus description of patients' report concerning health care experience. Examples: Health plan members' experiences: percentage of adult health plan members who reported whether a doctor or other health provider included them in shared decision making. Patients' satisfaction with care: parent's/guardian's overall rating of their child's doctor.
Population Health	Disease/condition OR clinical topic: metric plus description of the state of health of a group of persons defined by geographic location, organizational affiliation or non-clinical characteristics. Examples: Urinary tract infection (UTI) admission rate (area level): rate per 100,000 population. Selected infections due to medical care (area level): rate per 100,000 population.
Process	Disease/condition OR clinical topic: metric plus treatment/intervention. Examples: Acute myocardial infarction (AMI): percent of patients without beta-blocker contraindications who are prescribed a beta-blocker at hospital discharge. Childhood immunization: percentage of patients who received their primary course of immunizations (i.e., DPT-HiB, polio x4, and MMR) by age 24 months.
Structure	Disease/condition OR clinical topic: metric plus description of structural feature. Examples: Domestic violence: percentage of health care staff trained in initial assessment of problems of domestic violence every twelve months. Physician to population ratio: total number of specialist physicians per 100,000 population.
Use of Services	Disease/condition OR clinical topic: metric plus description of provision of service. Examples: Asthma: the average length of stay for all episodes of children admitted with primary diagnosis of asthma, during the 6 month time period. General and specialty care: percent of enrollees with one or more vision care encounters (MEDDIC-MS).

Send questions regarding NQMC's Measure Naming Conventions to info@qualitymeasures.ahrq.gov.

Naming Measures in NQMC

Background

Measure Naming Conventions

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