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

GIH Maternal and Child Health Audioconference Series

Speakers:

• Rosemary Chalk, Director, Board on Children, Youth and Families, Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council
• Charles J. Homer, President and Chief Executive Officer, National Initiative for Children’s Healthcare Quality and
  member of the IOM Committee on Pediatric Health and Health Care Quality Measures

What:

Health and health care quality measures can provide valuable information about the health status of children and adolescents, as well as the outcomes associated with medical care, policy, and social programs. Despite the fact that the U.S. government currently supports hundreds of data sets and measures through federal surveys and administrative data systems, there is no single data source that can provide valid and reliable indicators about the health and health care quality of children and adolescents. In the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009, Congress directed the Institute of Medicine (IOM) and the National Research Council (NRC) to evaluate efforts to measure child and adolescent health and the quality of their health care services. The IOM, which released a report April 25, found that the lack of standardization among data sets, as well as the lack of information on physical and social environments, limits researchers’ ability to accurately assess the data. On this call, funders heard about IOM’s recommendations to standardize and make improvements to data sources and measures of health and health care quality for children and adolescents.