The goal of improving the quality of care provided to all children in the United States is a national priority. Although nascent attempts have been made to address this issue, much work remains to be done in both developing the means to define quality, and also in efforts to implement into practice those quality measures which do exist. In response to the call for proposals for the Cooperative Research Demonstration and Dissemination Projects, we present a structured yet flexible capacity and program of research, the Quality Measurement, Evaluation, Testing, Review and Implementation Consortium (Q-METRIC). The proposed program will conduct studies on the development, assessment, refinement and testing of quality measures as directed by the Agency for HealthCare Quality and Research (AHRQ). These studies will focus on quality measures for children's healthcare, including preventive health services, healthcare for acute conditions, chronic health care and health services to ameliorate the effects of physical and mental conditions and to aid in growth and development of infants, young children, school-age children, and adolescents, including those with special health care needs. The proposed research team has extensive experience, expertise, data resources, clinical resources, IT infrastructure and the ability to marshal those resources effectively and efficiently to function within the framework of a cooperative agreement. Input from families and public groups is also included in the research plan. The proposed research consortium (Q-METRIC) will bring remarkable innovation to the quality measures assigned through the capacity to create synergy across a wide range of methodologic, analytic and measurement testing scenarios. Once a task is assigned by the AHRQ, a series of deliberate and sequential meetings of consortium participants and consultants will take place that will allow for the conduct of any potential request. Initially, a meeting of the Consortium Committee will determine the capacity and resources of each consortium member for the assigned task. This will be followed by a meeting of the Executive Committee which will determine which consortium components best fit the needs of the task. The executive committee will then name the Project-Specific Working Group which will complete the assigned tasks. The working groups will have the responsibility to actually conduct the task assigned by AHRQ and will be comprised of members with the resources available to do so. The composition of each Project-Specific Working Group will be unique for each task assigned by AHRQ. The Project-Specific Working Groups will be led by experienced researchers with methodologic expertise appropriate to the task assigned.
The goal of improving the quality of care provided to all U.S. children is a national priority. The proposed program will conduct studies on the development, assessment, refinement and testing of quality measures as directed by the Agency for HealthCare Quality and Research (AHRQ).
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