The Developmental Services Quality Performance Measurement Project (DSQPM)

UCLA, Center for Healthier Children, Families and Communities, in collaboration with The Commonwealth Fund and a national Advisory Group of child health experts representing major health care delivery, monitoring, accreditation and finance organizations, have joined to carry out the Developmental Services Quality Performance Measurement (DSQPM) Project. The DSQPM project was launched to create a framework for measuring the quality of developmental services and an initial and parsimonious set of core measures that state Medicaid agencies (and their contracted health plans) could use to assess and track the delivery and quality of developmental services for young children. As of February 2008, the draft core measures have gone through several iterations and have been critically reviewed by the Advisory Board.

The next steps of the project are to conduct a state survey to gain feedback on how to further refine the measures. Upon completion of the survey, a small set of practical measures for assessing the quality of developmental services will be ready for pilot-testing in 10-15 key state Medicaid agencies in 2008. As part of the proposed pilot test, we will provide technical assistance to states with data collection and reporting activities and include a measurement spread strategy and an improvement learning collaborative among participating states to facilitate shared learning. At the conclusion of the pilot, the DSQPM collaborative will disseminate project results to key quality measurement organizations such as the National Committee for Quality Assurance, the National Quality Forum, to promote the use of the new DSQPM measures by health plans and systems.

For additional information, please contact Lisa Stanley, MPH.