Quality Matters: A Podcast by NCQA

Inside Health Care #76: Dr. Sally Friedman & the Call for Continuous Monitoring with Mealtime Insulin

In this episode of "Inside Health Care", we discuss the "hospital at home" health care model with two experts in remote care. Dr. Sally Friedman is a chief endocrinology fellow in the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee. Dr. Friedman is an expert in the use of “continuous glucose monitoring” in in-patient diabetes management. She’s been working on this topic with the Medical Learning Institute , which, in turn, is no...

Inside Health Care #75: Dr. Eric Schneider & the Quality Measurement Forecast

In this episode, we get a look ahead, both at the future of NCQA's Quality Measurement agenda and our Quality Talks 2022 event . Dr. Eric Schneider is NCQA's recently-appointed Executive Vice President of the Quality Measurement and Research Group. In this role, he helps drive NCQA’s efforts to create a more equitable health care system and to advance the move to digital quality measurement. Before that, he served as a Health Quality expert for both The Commonwealth Fund and the RAND Corporation...

Inside Health Care #74: Digital Diabetes' Buster Sami Inkinen

In this episode of Inside Health Care, we give you the inside scoop on Quality Talks , coming on April 21, 2022. But before that, we feature an exclusive interview with one of this year's speakers: Sami Inkinen . Inkinen is CEO and Co-Founder of Virta Health , which provides treatment to sustainably reverse type 2 diabetes without medications or surgery. But get this: Inkinen is not a clinician. He’s a technology and data pioneer, a venture capitalist entrepreneur and a physicist. After stints i...

Inside Health Care #73: Dr. Shane McNamee & the Genius of the Learning Health System

Imagine a world where all medical and patient information gets combined and processed efficiently. No matter how many doctors you’d see about a certain problem, each doctor would already have the test results and evaluations of the one before. And the health systems themselves would automatically grab all that patient info…and use it to fix what’s broken in the patient care system. Sounds like a lot to ask for. But our guest on Inside Health Care has an answer. It’s called a Learning Health Syst...

Inside Health Care #72: Dr. Nichola Davis & the Call for the Community Health Worker

Dr. Nichola Davis is Vice President and Chief Population Health Officer at New York City’s Health and Hospitals. Dr. Davis' new project: The New York City Public Health Corps. Dayna Bell, Executive Director for Health Care Quality at Aetna/CVS Health, joins later. A long-time NCQA veteran, she reminds us of the importance of being prepared. We talk “Accreditation Readiness,” and delivers details on the webinar of the same name....

Inside Health Care #71: Dr. Chere Gregory and Dr. Nneka Sederstrom on Beginning the Journey of NCQA's Health Equity Accreditation Programs

NCQA launched its Health Equity Accreditation program late last year. In another exciting development, it’s launched a pilot version of Health Equity Accreditation Plus, designed for organizations that already have an equity program but are looking for advanced ways to measure and boost existing efforts. Both programs provide a thorough framework to measure progress and inform new disparity-eliminating strategies. But there’s more. These programs are not limited to NCQA’s traditional health plan...

Inside Health Care #70: NCQA President Peggy O'Kane & the State of Health Care 2021

In 2021, the pandemic continued to test our health system. In this episode of “Inside Health Care” featuring NCQA’s President, Peggy O’Kane, we look back at how the pandemic brought challenges but also inspired innovation. In this chat with NCQA’s Vice President of Public Policy and External Relations, Frank Micciche, Peggy looks back at the uneasiness of 2021…before looking ahead, with hope, at the year to come.

Inside Health Care #69: Dr. Susan Beane on Closing Equity Gaps on a Larger Scale

Inside Health Care #68: Dr. Lisa Cooper & Bridging Equity Gaps with Better Listening

This episode of "Inside Health Care" features Dr. Lisa A. Cooper, a pioneer in closing the gaps that still persist in health care equity. Dr. Lisa A. Cooper is an internist, a health services researcher, and a social epidemiologist. A recipient of a MacArthur “genius” grant in 2007, Dr. Cooper pioneered methods of measuring racial and ethnic disparities in the quality of communication and relationships between doctors and patients and of implementing community-engaged interventions to overcome d...

Inside Health Care #67: Dr. Renee Towne & Dr. Niam Yaraghi on What to Do with the Data You Crunch

Everybody knows how annoying it can be when a doctor sits you down and asks you a ton of irrelevant questions, sometimes with their nose in their laptop, before even examining you. On this podcast, we talk a lot about the ‘Digitalization of health.’ But once someone gathers the data, crunches the numbers, then sends them to the right people, what’s next? For answers, in this episode on Inside Health Care, we talk with data-crunching experts Dr. Renee Towne and Dr. Niam Yaraghi. Dr. Renee Towne i...

Inside Health Care #66: Dr. Dan Wilson & Dr. Mary Barton on NCQA's Kidney Health Toolkit & a Deeper Dive into Diabetes

This week's episode of NCQA's Inside Health Care podcast observes National Diabetes Month. We feature a discussion with two experts in diabetes care who discuss the links between diabetes diagnosis and kidney disease. Following that, we have a chat with NCQA President Peggy O'Kane about moving Health Equity solutions to the top of U.S. health care agenda. More than 37 million adults in the U.S. have chronic kidney disease, but because so many are asymptomatic, most of them don’t know they have i...

Inside Health Care #65: Dr. Rachel Harrington on Health Equity and "What's Measured...Matters."

Why do the issues of Health Equity persist? If agencies and NGOs have spent years identifying gaps in care for minority groups in the U.S., what needs to be done to solve these issues, once and for all? Enter NCQA Research Scientist Dr. Rachel Harrington. In the paper titled "An Equity Agenda for the Field of Health Care Quality Improvement," published in mid-September 2021 by the National Academy of Medicine, Dr. Harrington, along with NCQA President Peggy O'Kane and other Health Care leaders, ...

Inside Health Care #64: Keirsha Thompson, LaToshia Rouse, & Bridging Health Equity Through Quality Measurement

In September 2021, the esteemed Health Affairs organization published a significant paper in their online blog, titled “A New Effort To Address Racial And Ethnic Disparities In Care Through Quality Measurement.” The authors, from NCQA and beyond, focus on the strides being made in collecting accurate data on patient race and ethnicity, discussing current strides in parsing and disseminating that data to both federal agencies and medical institutions. This year, NCQA began rolling out race and et...

Inside Health Care #63, Vanessa Guzman and the Revelations of the Pandemic

A frequent guest on this podcast, SmartRise Health CEO Vanessa Guzman chats with NCQA’s Matt Brock about how the pandemic uncovered pre-existing gaps in health care services, health equity, and institutional communication. Vanessa is an expert in population health strategies, including patient and physician engagement, clinical reporting, and health IT and quality management models. Please note this interview was recorded back in January of 2021.

Inside Health Care #61: NCQA Torda Fellow Kevin Wiley and Crunching Data for Care Coordination

Kevin Wiley, NCQA’s new Phyllis Torda Health Care Quality and Equity Fellow, researches solutions for improving care delivery and coordination for minority communities. Kevin chats with NCQA Director of Communications Matt Brock about what can be done both to simplify patient care and to help patients and their providers to share information more efficiently. We also learn about his plans for the next year serving as Torda fellow.

Inside Health Care #62 - Tavia Rauch on Using Data Exchanges to Improve HEDIS Testing

In this episode of “Inside Health Care,” we hear from a member of the Digital Measurement Community, Tavia Rauch, head of clinical informatics with the New York e-Health Collaborative. Before that, she spent nearly five years in charge of population health and data quality for non-profit Hixny, a health information exchange connecting individuals, providers, and organizations across eastern New York state. NCQA partnered with the New York State Department of Health to explore possibilities in us...

Inside Health Care #60: Dr. Shantanu Nundy on Patient Care Lessons Learned from COVID

On this episode of NCQA's podcast "Inside Health Care," Dr. Shantanu Nundy chats with NCQA CEO Peggy O'Kane about his book, "Care After COVID," and what the medical community can learn from the COVID crisis.

Inside Health Care #59: Dr. Janani Rangaswami and Dr. Mary Barton on Optimizing Care for Patients With Type 2 Diabetes and Heart Failure

Janani Rangaswami, MD, FACP, FCRS, FAHA Mary Barton, MD In 2020, NCQA convened a Diabetes and Heart Failure Roundtable with a diverse panel of experts to confront the persistent challenges of care delivery and to drive improvement in the quality of care for patients affected by type 2 diabetes and heart failure. Findings from the discussion are presented in a white paper, Optimizing Care for Patients With Type 2 Diabetes and Heart Failure . In this episode of Inside Health Care, Dr. Janani Ranga...

Inside Health Care #58: Vanessa Guzman, of SmartRise Health, on Quality Improvement

Vanessa Guzman of SmartRise Health In this episode of Inside Health Care, Vanessa Guzman, CEO of SmartRise Health , chats with NCQA’s Matt Brock about aligning quality improvement between payers and providers. Vanessa discusses key components of a quality program for these two groups, and how to prioritize measures when participating in multiple value-based care arrangements. Vanessa also discusses how payers and providers can engage patients to address gaps in care and how best to integrate soc...

Inside Health Care #57: Chronic Kidney Disease Often Undiagnosed in Medicare Beneficiaries—Data Highlight

This episode of Inside Health Care features a panel discussion about a joint study of chronic kidney disease (CKD) by NCQA, Duke University and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Office of Minority Health. Panelists are Matt Maciejewski, PhD, and Clarissa Diamantidis, PhD (Duke); Loida Tamayo (CMS); and Karen Onstad and Matt Brock (NCQA). CKD is a gradual loss of kidney function that begins with asymptomatic kidney damage and may progress to kidney failure, requiring dialysis or a kidney tran...

Inside Health Care #56: Peggy O’Kane on Last Year’s Challenges and New Year’s Resolutions

In this episode of “Inside Health Care,” Peggy O’Kane, NCQA President, talks with Frank Micciche, NCQA VP of Public Policy and Communications, about what she learned from 2020, including her rediscovery of the importance of public health and its links with the private sector. Peggy and Frank also discuss NCQA’s priorities for 2021 and beyond: Digital quality measures , multicultural health care , telehealth and more....

Inside Health Care #55: Dr. Douglas Jacobs, Pennsylvania’s Department of Human Services Chief Innovation Officer

Dr. Douglas Jacobs In this episode of Inside Health Care, Dr. Douglas Jacobs, Chief Innovation Officer of Pennsylvania’s Department of Human Services , chats with Eric Musser, NCQA Deputy Director of State Affairs about his background, how Pennsylvania responded to COVID-19 and built equity inside the department in response to America’s racial reckoning in 2020. Dr. Jacobs also talks about incentivizing Medicaid managed care organizations to close disparities, how NCQA’s Distinction in Multicult...

Inside Health Care #54: Vanessa Guzman, of SmartRise Health, on Filling ACO Payer Collaboration

Vanessa Guzman of SmartRise Health In this episode of Inside Health Care, Vanessa Guzman, CEO of SmartRise Health , chats with NCQA’s Lawrence Green about accountable care organization (ACO)-payer partnerships, risk value-based payments and improving quality in cost-related metrics. Vanessa discusses ACO and payer priorities, successful ACO-payer models and the role of quality measures in an ideal strategy. Vanessa also talks about the key elements for building an ACO-payer infrastructure to sup...

Inside Health Care #53: Vanessa Guzman of SmartRise Health on Filling Gaps in Care

Vanessa Guzman of SmartRise Health In this episode of Inside Health Care, Vanessa Guzman, CEO of SmartRise Health , chats with Matt Brock, NCQA Director of Communications, about the intersection of gaps in care, population health and quality reporting. Vanessa discusses the role of preventive health, behavioral health and social determinants of health in closing care gaps. Vanessa also talks about leveraging data to close gaps in care and the role technology and artificial intelligence play in i...

Inside Health Care #52: AmeriHealth Caritas’ Danielle Brooks on Ensuring Health Equity and Quality Improvement

Danielle Brooks of AmeriHealth Caritas In this episode of Inside Health Care, AmeriHealth Caritas’ Danielle Brooks, Director of Health Equity, chats with Dr. Michael Barr, NCQA Executive Vice President, about “The Return on Investment for Health Equity and Quality Improvement,” her presentation at this year’s Digital Quality Summit . Danielle also discusses the disproportionate effect of COVID-19 on communities of color and how this might impact addressing health disparities, measures to take wh...

Inside Health Care #51: Ashlee Wisdom, of Health In Her Hue, Discusses Delivering Culturally Competent Health Care

Ashlee Wisdom of Health In Her Hue In this episode of Inside Health Care, Ashlee Wisdom, CEO and founder of Health In Her Hue , chats with NCQA’s Lawrence Green about the importance of connecting Black women with culturally competent health care providers, telehealth services and health information that centers Black women’s lived experiences. Ashlee addresses how the roots of America’s health care system align against the interests of Black women and how she’s helping to change the narrative ar...

Inside Health Care #50: Dr. Adrienne Mims of Jencare Senior Medical Center discusses her devotion to patient care with NCQA’s Peggy O’Kane

Dr. Adrienne Mims Courtesy of JenCare Senior Medical Center In this episode of Inside Health Care, Peggy O’Kane, NCQA President, and Dr. Adrienne Mims , former Vice President and Chief Medical Officer for Alliant Health Solutions, current health care provider at Jencare Senior Medical Center discuss Dr. Mims’ multifaceted professional background, EHR use, solutions to health disparities and motivating chronically ill patients. Dr. Mims also addresses how COVID has changed primary care for older ...

Inside Health Care #49: NCQA’s Dr. Mary Barton on the Peer Review Process During COVID-19

In this episode of Inside Health Care, NCQA’s Dr. Mary Barton, Vice President of Performance, chats with Matt Brock, NCQA Communications Director, about the implications of two major study retractions from prestigious medical journals during the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Barton talks about the level of expertise needed to review journal articles, ensuring data quality standards and the incentive for journals to publish groundbreaking studies first. Dr. Barton also discusses how the novelty of COVID...

Inside Health Care #48: The Policy Primer – Taskforce on Telehealth Policy – Part II

We return to the Policy Primer for this edition of Inside Health Care. The aim is to explain complex health care issues in a simple, readily understandable way for policy experts… and others who may not be brushed up on the details. NCQA’s Director of Federal Affairs Paul Cotton joins us again to talk about the Taskforce on Telehealth Policy and it’s efforts to map a future for the newly embraced way of delivering care. The committee releases its final report today. You can check it out at bit.l...

Inside Health Care #47: The Policy Primer – Taskforce on Telehealth Policy – Part I

There’s something new for this edition of “Inside Health Care.” We’re calling it Policy Primer. We want to explain complex health care issues in a simple, readily understandable way for policy experts… and others who may not be brushed up on the details. This time, NCQA’s Director of Federal Affairs Paul Cotton joins us to talk about the Taskforce on Telehealth Policy and it’s efforts to map a future for the newly embraced way of delivering care. The committee releases its final report on Septem...