Chartbook on Person- and Family-Centered Care

Background

This Chartbook on Person- and Family-Centered Care is part of a family of documents and tools that support the National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Report (QDR). The QDR includes annual reports to Congress mandated in the Healthcare Research and Quality Act of 1999 (P.L. 106-129). These reports provide a comprehensive overview of the quality of health care received by the general U.S. population and disparities in care experienced by different racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups. The purpose of the reports is to assess the performance of our health system and to identify areas of strengths and weaknesses in the health care system along three main axes: access to health care, quality of health care, and priorities of the National Quality Strategy.

The reports are based on more than 250 measures of quality and disparities covering a broad array of health care services and settings. Data are generally available through 2013. The reports are produced with the help of an Interagency Work Group led by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and submitted on behalf of the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Key Findings of the 2015 QDR

• Access to care has improved dramatically, led by sustained reductions in the number of Americans without health insurance and increases in the number of Americans with a usual source of medical care.
• Quality of care continues to improve, but wide variation exists across the National Quality Strategy (NQS) priorities:
  • Effective Treatment measures indicate improvements in overall performance and reductions in disparities.
  • Care Coordination measures have lagged behind other priorities in overall performance.
  • Patient Safety, Person-Centered Care, and Healthy Living measures have improved overall, but many disparities remain.
• Despite progress in some areas, disparities related to race and socioeconomic status persist among measures of access and all NQS priorities.
• Care Affordability measures are limited for summarizing performance and disparities.
• Disparities in access tend to be more common than disparities in quality.

Chartbooks Organized Around Priorities of the National Quality Strategy

• Making care safer by reducing harm caused in the delivery of care.
• Ensuring that each person and family is engaged as partners in their care.
• Promoting effective communication and coordination of care.
• Promoting the most effective prevention and treatment practices for the leading causes of mortality, starting with cardiovascular disease.
• Working with communities to promote wide use of best practices to enable healthy living.
• Making quality care more affordable for individuals, families, employers, and governments by developing and spreading new health care delivery models.

Person- and Family-Centered Care is one of the six national priorities identified in the National Quality Strategy.

The National Quality Strategy has identified three long-term goals related to person- and family-centered care:

1. Improve patient, family, and caregiver experience of care related to quality, safety, and access across settings.
2. In partnership with patients, families, and caregivers—and using a shared decision-making process—develop culturally sensitive and understandable care plans.
3. Enable patients and their families and caregivers to navigate, coordinate, and manage their care appropriately and effectively.

Person-centered care means defining success not just by the resolution of clinical symptoms but also by whether patients achieve their desired outcomes. Some examples of person-centered care include ensuring that patients' preferences, desired outcomes, and experiences of care are integrated into care delivery; integrating patient-generated data in electronic health records; and finding additional ways to involve patients and families in managing their care effectively.

Chartbook on Person- and Family-Centered Care

• This chartbook includes:
  • Summary of trends across measures of Person-Centered Care from the QDR.
  • Figures illustrating select measures of Person-Centered Care.
• Introduction and Methods contains information about methods used in the chartbook.
• A Data Query tool provides access to all data tables.