Child and Adolescent Health and Health Care Quality: Measuring What Matters

This book posits the need for a comprehensive strategy to make better use of existing data, to integrate different data sources, and to develop new data sources and collection methods for unique populations. Child and Adolescent Health and Health Care Quality looks closely at three areas: the nature, scope, and quality of existing data sources; gaps in measurement areas; and methodological areas that deserve attention.

Child and Adolescent Health and Health Care Quality makes recommendations for improving and strengthening the timeliness, quality, public transparency, and accessibility of information on child health and health care quality.
This book will be a vital resource for health officials at the local, state, and national levels, as well as private and public health care organizations and researchers.
In the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009, Congress directed the IOM and the National Research Council (NRC) to evaluate the state of efforts to measure child and adolescent health and the quality of their health care services.

Contents
SUMMARY
1 INTRODUCTION
Study Context
Study Charge, Approach, and Scope
Organization of the Report
2 SETTING THE STAGE
Definitions
Background
Need for a Comprehensive Approach to Child and Adolescent Health
Initial Observations on Current Data Systems Addressing
Child and Adolescent Health and Health Care
Summary
3 CURRENT DATA COLLECTION METHODS AND SOURCES
Data Collection Methods
Existing Data Sources
Limitations of Existing Data Sources
The Need for a Coordinated Approach to Integrate Measures of Child and Adolescent Health and Health Care Quality
Summary
4 EXISTING MEASURES OF CHILD AND ADOLESCENT HEALTH
Existing Measures of Child and Adolescent Health
Timeliness, Quality, Public Transparency, and Accessibility of Data on Child and Adolescent Health
Aggregating, Synthesizing, and Linking Multiple Data Sources
Efforts to Make Data Meaningful by Linking Population
Health Indicators and Public Health Interventions
Summary
5 MEASURES OF QUALITY OF CHILD AND ADOLESCENT HEALTH CARE
Purpose of Quality Measurement
Critical Features of an Optimal Health Care Quality
Measurement System for Children and Adolescents
Initial Efforts to Develop a Measurement System for Quality of Care for Children and Adolescents
Current Efforts to Improve the Measurement of Quality of Health Care for Children and Adolescents
Adequacy of These Efforts to Achieve an Optimal System
Promising State and Local Initiatives
Summary
6 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Conclusions
A Stepwise Approach to Measuring Health and Health Care
Quality for Children and Adolescents
Step 1: Set Goals
Step 2: Develop Annual Reports and Standardized Measures Based on Existing Data Sets
Step 3: Create New Measures and Data Sources in Priority Areas
Step 4: Improve Data Collection, Reporting, and Analysis
Step 5: Improve Public and Private Capacities to Use and Report Data
Final Observations
REFERENCES