AHRQ & CMS Award $13.4 M for Pediatric Quality Testing

In October, The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHR) and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) gave six new Pediatric Quality Measures Program (PQMP) grantees $13.4 million to test new pediatric quality measures over the next four years. The money provided by CMS and The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) with funds from the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA).

“Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Programs (CHIP) give millions of children in the United States a health start,” said Vikki Wachino, Director, Center for Medicaid and CHIP Services (CMCS), in a press release. “Through efforts such as this PQMP funding, we are able to advance states’ efforts to measure and report meaningful improvements in the quality of care for children.”

The pediatric measures were created by the PQMP Centers for Excellence with the goal of creating a portfolio of evidence-based, consensus pediatric quality measures available to public and private purchasers of children’s healthcare services. Grantees will be expected to test the feasibility and usability of the measure in the real-world settings at the state, health plan, and provider levels.

“The PQMP Centers of Excellence provided us with valid measures of children’s healthcare quality. This next step of research will help us test these measures in real-world setting,” said AHRQ director Andy Bindman, MD. “The ultimate goal is to improve children’s health through better health care, at lower costs, at both the federal and state level.”