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Quality Improvement and Oral Health

Quality Improvement

 

This collection of selected resources offers high-quality information about quality improvement. Use the tools below for further searching, or contact us for personalized assistance.

OHRC Publications

This section contains OHRC-produced materials.


Details

Center for Oral Health Systems Integration and Improvement Quality Indicator Advisory Team, Dental Quality Alliance, National Maternal and Child Oral Health Resource Center. 2019. Identifying and implementing oral health quality indicators for the maternal and child health population: 2018–2019 report. Washington, DC: National Maternal and Child Oral Health Resource Center; Chicago, IL: Dental Quality Alliance, 28 pp

National Maternal and Child Oral Health Resource Center
Georgetown University Washington, DC 20057

E-mail: [email protected]
Website: https://www.mchoralhealth.org
Available from the website.

This report provides results from the Center for Oral Health Systems Integration and Improvement’s Quality Indicators Advisory Team’s efforts to establish a set of maternal and child oral health quality indicators to monitor oral health services delivered in public health programs and systems of care. The report provides indicators for women of child-bearing age and pregnant women and for children, as well as a user guide, and discusses implementation strategies, indicator limitations, and challenges in obtaining data. [Funded by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau]


Details

Center for Oral Health Systems Integration and Improvement Quality Indicator Advisory Team, Dental Quality Alliance, National Maternal and Child Oral Health Resource Center. 2023. Oral health quality indicators for the maternal and child health population. Washington, DC: National Maternal and Child Oral Health Resource Center; Chicago, IL: Dental Quality Alliance, 2 pp

National Maternal and Child Oral Health Resource Center
Georgetown University Washington, DC 20057

E-mail: [email protected]
Website: https://www.mchoralhealth.org
Available from the website.

This handout outlines a set of maternal and child health quality indicators to monitor oral health services delivered in public health programs and systems of care. Indicators for women of childbearing age and pregnant women are broken into three categories: access, utilization, and outcomes. Indicators for children are broken into four categories: access, utilization, process, and outcomes.[Funded by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau]


Details

Center for Oral Health Systems Integration and Improvement Quality Indicator Advisory Team, Dental Quality Alliance, National Maternal and Child Oral Health Resource Center. 2022. Oral health quality indicators for the maternal and child health population: User guide and technical specifications. Washington, DC: National Maternal and Child Oral Health Resource Center; Chicago, IL: Dental Quality Alliance, 79 pp

National Maternal and Child Oral Health Resource Center
Georgetown University Washington, DC 20057

E-mail: [email protected]
Website: https://www.mchoralhealth.org
Available from the website.

This guide provides guidance on implementing oral health quality indicators for the maternal and child health population. The guide provides background information on the indicators and presents indicator summaries. Also included are general guidelines for data collection, preparation, and reporting and technical specifications. [Funded by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau]


Details

Herndon J, Ojha D. 2022. Considerations for identifying pregnancies in claims data for oral health care quality measurement. Washington, DC: National Maternal and Child Oral Health Resource Center; Chicago, IL: Dental Quality Alliance, 8 pp

National Maternal and Child Oral Health Resource Center
Georgetown University Washington, DC 20057

E-mail: [email protected]
Website: https://www.mchoralhealth.org
Available from the website.

This paper provides information about two oral health quality measures for pregnant women that the Dental Quality Alliance has developed. The paper explains why oral health care during pregnancy and the development of related oral-healthcare-quality measures are important, as well as how health-care-quality measures are reported. It also discusses identifying pregnant women in claims data for denominator inclusion, determining enrollment requirements for denominator inclusion, determining time frame for receipt of recommended services for numerator inclusion, and the impact of benefits coverage on identification services for numerator inclusion. [Funded by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau]


Details

Herndon J, Ojha D, Layman S, Colangelo E, Shimpi N, Aravamudhan K. 2024. Selected quality measures of oral health care for children. Chicago, IL: Dental Quality Alliance; Washington, DC: National Maternal and Child Oral Health Resource Center, 6 pp

National Maternal and Child Oral Health Resource Center
Georgetown University Washington, DC 20057

E-mail: [email protected]
Website: https://www.mchoralhealth.org
Available from the website.

This brief provides a national summary of selected oral health care quality measures for children developed by the Dental Quality Alliance (DQA) and displayed in DQA's State Oral Healthcare Quality Dashboard. The brief offers information on the following selected measures: Oral Evaluation, Dental Services (by or under the supervision of a dentist); Topical Fluoride for Children; and Sealant Receipt on Permanent First Molars. Data is presented on these three measures for the period 2016–2020.


Details

National Maternal and Child Oral Health Resource Center and Dental Quality Alliance. 2020. Oral health quality indicators for the maternal and child health (MCH) population: An overview. Washington, DC: National Maternal and Child Oral Health Resource Center; Chicago, IL: Dental Quality Alliance, 7 pp

National Maternal and Child Oral Health Resource Center
Georgetown University Washington, DC 20057

E-mail: [email protected]
Website: https://www.mchoralhealth.org
Available from the website.

This report provides an overview of the oral health quality indicators for the maternal and child health (MCH) population created by the Centers for Oral Health Systems Integration and Improvement, Quality Advisory Team (QIAT). The overview explains what the indicators are and their purpose. It also describes the framework QIAT created to support quality measurement and improvement, an environmental scan of existing quality indicators, pilot implementation, and challenges and opportunities. [Funded by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau]


Details

National Maternal and Child Oral Health Resource Center and Dental Quality Alliance . 2020. Readiness assessment: Assessing the capacity to implement oral health quality indicators for the maternal and child health population. Washington, DC: National Maternal and Child Oral Health Resource Center; Chicago, IL: Dental Quality Alliance, 16 pp

National Maternal and Child Oral Health Resource Center
Georgetown University Washington, DC 20057

E-mail: [email protected]
Website: https://www.mchoralhealth.org
Available from the website.

This readiness assessment is designed for state oral health programs to explore capacity for collection of, access to, and analysis of the data used to calculate maternal and child health oral health quality indicators. It is organized by the data sources used to calculate the indicators: the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System, the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, the Basic Screening Survey, and Medicaid administrative claims and enrollment data. [Funded by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau]

     


OHRC Library

This section contains recent materials, not including OHRC-produced materials.


Details

Bannon J, Bienstock A, Cass B, Dickinson P, Gleason L, Kendrick D, Knierim K, McCaskill M, McCormack J, Ross S, Whitley E. 2022. Obtaining and using data in practice improvement: A handbook for health IT advisors and practice facilitators. Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 153 pp

U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
5600 Fishers Lane
Rockville, MD 20857

Telephone: (301) 427-1364
Website: http://www.ahrq.gov
Available from the website. Document Number: AHRQ 22-0028.

This handbook is intended as a resource for coaches who provide primary care practices with health information technology (IT)–related assistance to support their quality-improvement (QI) and practice-transformation efforts. Topics include strategies for health IT advisors, working with electronic health records (EHRs), clinical-decision support, patient portals and engagement technologies, and incorporating patient-generated data for QI. Additional topics include EHR cases for QI, alternative data sources for QI, and reviews of clinical quality measures and of risk stratification in primary care.


Details

Dental Quality Alliance. 2022. Quality measurement in oral healthcare: A guidebook. Chicago, IL: American Dental Association, 45 pp

American Dental Association
211 East Chicago Avenue
Chicago, IL 60611-2678

Telephone: (312) 440-2500
Fax: (312) 440-7494
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: http://www.ada.org
Available from the website.

This guide provides information for developing messages and educational resources education about quality measures, performance, and evaluation. Topic include an introduction to quality measures; a rationale for measuring; and information on national interest in quality measures, players in the oral-health-care-quality landscape, and challenges related to measurement in oral health care. Information on the Dental Quality Alliance and its measure-development process is also included, along with information on level of measurement and measurement alignment.


Details

Dental Quality Alliance. 2023. User guide for pediatric measures calculated using administrative claims data. Chicago, IL: American Dental Association on behalf of the Dental Quality Alliance, 55 pp

American Dental Association
211 East Chicago Avenue
Chicago, IL 60611-2678

Telephone: (312) 440-2500
Fax: (312) 440-7494
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: http://www.ada.org
Available from the website.

This guide provides information about pediatric measures designed for use by public programs (e.g., Medicaid, Children's Health Insurance Program), state marketplaces, dental benefits administrators, and managed care organizations and developed by the Dental Quality Alliance. The guide provides background and discusses measure-implementation considerations; data collection, preparation, and reporting measures implemented using administrative enrollment and claims/encounter data; and measure-score interpretation relative to overall utilization. Frequently asked questions are also addressed.


Details

Mayer BD, Agolini I, Wright R, Casamassimo P. 2022. Value-based care in pediatric dentistry. Chicago, IL: American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry, Pediatric Oral Health Research and Policy Center, 15 pp

American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry, Research and Policy Center
211 East Chicago Avenue, Suite 1600
Chicago, IL 60611-2637

Telephone: (312) 337-2169
Secondary Telephone: (800) 544-2174
Fax: (312) 337-6329
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: https://www.aapd.org/research/policy-center/
Available from the website.

This brief includes information on the value-based care (VBC) model. Under this model, health professionals are paid based on the overall quality of care they provide, not on the number of services rendered or the number of patients served. The brief describes three models (fee for service, capitation or managed care, and VBC) and presents recommendations for VBC programs that provide children with oral health care. Challenges to developing a VBC system are addressed.


Details

New Jersey Health Care Quality Institute. 2025. Looking at NJ Medicaid oral health quality performance for children through a secret shopper market survey of the MCO network directories for children ages 0 to 6. Princeton, NJ: New Jersey Health Care Quality Institute, 23 pp

New Jersey Health Care Quality Institute
P.O. Box 2246 Princeton, NJ 08543

Telephone: (609) 452-5980
Website: https://www.njhcqi.org
Available from the website.

This report provides information about the quality of oral health care for infants and children from birth through age 6 enrolled in Medicaid in New Jersey. The report includes information on the importance of oral health. Data on the oral health status of infants and children living in the state, including those enrolled in Head Start, and about receipt of oral health care among these infants and children is presented. The report also describes a "secret shopper" survey used to assess quality and provides the quality measures used, methods, and results.


Details

Reyna S, Anderson S, Yang S, Rosenbach M. 2024. Recommendations for improving oral health care access, quality, and outcomes and advancing equity in Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program . Princeton, NJ: Mathematica, 35 pp

Mathematica
P.O. Box 2393
Princeton, NJ 08543-2393

Telephone: (609) 799-3535
Fax: (609) 799-0005
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: http://www.mathematica-mpr.com
Available from the website.

This report describes the framework that the 2023 Medicaid and CHIP Oral Health Initiative (OHI) Workgroup used to set priorities for improving oral health care access, quality, and outcomes and advancing health equity in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program. The report also summarizes workgroup input for the following focus areas: strategic priorities, strategies, and measures for monitoring progress for the next phase of the OHI. It provides background on why good oral health is important and about what the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has done to achieve the goal of improving oral health care for Americans, as well as about the workgroup’s charge.

     

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