Dental Clearinghouse Provides Oral Health Quality Measures

A team of researchers in the Health Policy Research Program has developed an interactive, online Patient-Centered Dental Home (PCDH) Clearinghouse of approximately 500 oral health quality measures and standards, the latest product of the PCDH project. The Clearinghouse is searchable and organized in alignment with the PCDH framework that was developed as part of a broader effort to define and measure the concept of a Patient-Centered Dental Home. The PCDH project, including development of the PCDH Clearinghouse, is supported by the CareQuest Institute for Oral Health. 

The PCDH project, led by Peter Damiano, Julie Reynolds, and Jill Boylston-Herndon, has been underway for several years with the goal of defining a patient-centered dental home model of care and quality measurement framework that facilitates dental care quality measurement and improvement across multiple care settings as well as medical-dental integration. The PCDH project has been conducted with active engagement of a broad range of stakeholders. Initial project phases focused on developing the definition and conceptual framework for a patient-centered dental home. The current phase of the project aims to identify measures and standards that can be used to operationalize the framework at the practice and system levels. Throughout this effort, the project team has gathered structured feedback from a broad-based, 50+ member National Advisory Committee using an iterative, consensus-based process. Additional feedback was solicited through public comment.  

Outcomes from the work thus far include:         

• Developed and published a standardized definition of a Patient-Centered Dental Home 
• Published numerous additional reports documenting the development of a quality measurement framework that aligns with the PCDH definition and contains components and measure concepts rated as important to the PCDH by the National Advisory Committee
• Developed the PCDH Clearinghouse of approximately 500 oral health quality measures and standards

The project team is currently focused on moving toward operationalizing the conceptual model. To do so, they will:

• Conducted a pilot survey with a subset of quality measure innovators in different types of practice settings to identify their current uses of dental quality measurement and improvement. Results from this survey are presented here.  
• Continue to work with the project National Advisory Committee to complete development of the PCDH framework and to begin the implementation stage by: (1) developing PCDH measure sets that achieve standardization and alignment while allowing for flexibility and adaptability to different use cases and care settings and (2) laying the groundwork for pilot implementation. This critical phase of the project creates the bridge from the conceptual framework development to actual implementation.