Healthcare performance measurements are important standardized tools used by programs, agencies, and clinical sites to ensure the quality of healthcare services and can help track and monitor how these systems are providing equitable, person-centered care. High-quality performance measures are vetted through an endorsement process that determines if a measure is important to report and measure, scientifically acceptable, relevant, usable, and feasible to collect.
Prior to 2016, there were no established measures of quality for contraceptive care. The first measures focused exclusively on access to contraceptive methods and utilized administrative claims data. These measures were limited in that they could not capture patient desires or preferences related to contraception.
PCRHP works to broaden and optimize the contraceptive care performance measures available through the development, testing, and promotion of contraceptive care performance measures that center individual’s preferences, needs, and values and honor reproductive autonomy.
Measurement for High-Quality Contraceptive Care
Here's how our three measures can be used together to help ensure patients receive high-quality contraceptive care.
1. Are patients being asked about their contraception service needs?
Self-Identified Need for Contraception (SINC) Screening Question
2. Is contraceptive counseling provided in a respectful, person-centered manner?
3. Are patients who want contraception accessing prescription methods?
Contraceptive Use eCQMs (CU-eCQM, LARC-eCQM)
Self-Identified Need for Contraception (SINC) Screening Question
The Self Identified Need for Contraception (SINC) question is both a screening question and a performance measure - the Contraceptive Screening eCQM (CCS-eCQM). SINC is a novel approach to contraceptive need assessment, utilizing a service-needs approach.
The Person-Centered Contraceptive Counseling (PCCC) measure
The PCCC is a validated and endorsed patient-reported outcome measure (PRO-PM) that evaluates patient experience of contraceptive counseling and care. This measure uses four short questions to assess how well providers support patients during the contraceptive decision-making process.
Contraceptive Use eCQMs (CU-eCQM, LARC-eCQM)
Contraceptive Use eCQMs (CU-eCQM, LARC-eCQM) calculate the percentage of people who receive a most or moderately effective method of contraception, or a Long-Acting Reversible Contraceptive (LARC), among those who self-identify their need for contraceptive services in a given facility.
These measures may be used and interpreted alone to focus on specific dimensions of the contraceptive care experience or used together to evaluate system-wide processes. For assistance in utilizing any of the measures, please visit our Technical Assistance and Training page.