June 24, 2013

Finding Care Coordination Measures

NQMC defines care coordination as an activity (organizational or individual) designed to maximize the quality of health care services delivered to individual patients through a coherent system linking people, information, tasks, and settings over time. Measures of care coordination can be found in a number of NQMC domains.
Finding Care Coordination Measures
Care coordination measures can be challenging to identify because there are many distinct definitions of care coordination, the measures may involve multiple providers and settings, and care coordination may involve patients with different conditions.
To assist NQMC users, NQMC has adopted a classification of care coordination measures based on the type of care transition that the measure addresses. The four types of care coordination are listed in the table below, with descriptions and examples.

Type of Care Coordination	Description	Example
Coordination within a provider team/site	Coordination between individuals employed by, or acting for a health care organization (defined by a single administrative management).	A measure assessing adequacy and timeliness of follow-up on ordered tests in the ambulatory care setting.
Coordination across provider teams/sites	Coordination between individuals employed by, or acting for different health care organizations that do not share institutional or administrative management systems.	A measure assessing the quality of discharge documentation sent from a hospital to a long term care facility at the time of hospital discharge.
Coordination between providers and patient/caregiver	Coordination between health care workers and the patient, family members, or caregivers (often non-professionals) with responsibility for providing care to the patient.	A measure assessing contacts between the primary care team and patients/caregivers between ambulatory visits.
Coordination between providers and community	Coordination between health care workers and community-based organizations on behalf of the patient.	A measure assessing communication between pediatricians and school staff for pediatric patients with developmental disorders.

Users may limit searches for measures in NQMC to one or more of the four care coordination types in the table above. Users may also limit searches to the setting(s) and health care professional(s) of interest, among other attributes.