Rebecca Snead Speculates on the Next Generation of Performance Measures

Current care areas with gaps in measurement and the next generation of performance measures, according to Rebecca Snead, RPh, executive vice president and chief executive officer of the National Alliance of State Pharmacy Associations and a member of the board of directors for the Pharmacy Quality Alliance (PQA).

Transcript (slightly modified for readability)

Where are there current care gaps with no measures, and how is that being remedied?

I think that there are a lot of areas, but one area in particular where we're extremely focused on is around specialty measures. We've got chronic diseases taht are being treated by incredible products, but we need to make sure that they're doing what we hope they would do in improving patient care. Specialty is definitely a focus area for us.

What is the next generation of performance measures, and how will it differ from current measures?

I think that PQA has done an incredible job of not just capturing that low-hanging fruit of things that were easy to measure—more process measures and intermediate outcome measures—but really getting at trying to look at how we're improving care and measures that will take data points from various sources and build to produce a positive outcome. It's hard, it takes a long time, it takes bringing a lot of partners to the table and discussing what the data means, and where you're going to get it from. And it also takes trust, and I think that's one thing that PQA has done over the last 10 years, is build that trust in all of our partners to be able to be willing to share the data to get to that next level of outcomes measures.

What topics does PQA want to address through its column with The American Journal of Pharmacy Benefits?

We really value the partnership and we are very, very excited to continue. I think that what we would like to see next is really a highlight on the opioid measures that were just approved and a discussion around how the marketplace is contemplating on using those measures and implementing them to be able to get those very effectively and very efficiently into the marketplace.