Last year, the KHC began a partnership with the Kentucky Department for Medicaid Services (KDMS) to create a core healthcare measures set for Kentucky’s primary care providers, with the ultimate goal of aligning the priorities of Medicare, Medicaid, and commercial insurers. The project was announced in September by Secretary of the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services Vickie Yates Brown Glisson, and soon after, four subcommittees formed in key areas got to work, evaluating national core measures sets, Kentucky performance data, organizational healthcare priorities, and more.
There continues to be much interest in the work, called the Kentucky Performance Measures Alignment Committee (PMAC). But the KHC hasn’t provided an update recently on PMAC or what the 73 experts from around the state are doing as part of the measures selection process.
After spending a considerable amount of time considering local and national priorities, the landscape of healthcare metrics, and data collection capabilities, the members of the subcommittees – Preventive Care, Chronic and Acute Care, Pediatric Care, and Behavioral Health Care – began the process of evaluating possible measures for inclusion using a scoring rubric that the subcommittees collaboratively created. For the last few weeks, each subcommittee has been going through the process of going over these evaluations to reach consensus on the status of these measures. Committee members are weighing a number of criteria, such as reporting capabilities, national and local measure priorities, and health and cost impact.
By the end of March, each subcommittee will finalize its list of measures to propose of the large oversight committee, which was announced in November. This large oversight PMAC team will meet for the first time in April, when it will hear the presentations of each subcommittee and kick off the next few months of work on their own deliberations.
PMAC members are working hard to release the measures set by August. Look for more updates on progress in the near future.
