The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has published a 2016 update to its Quality Strategy. The CMS Quality Strategy goals and objectives are aligned with the six priorities of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services National Quality Strategy for Improvement in Health Care:
Goal 1: Make Care Safer by Reducing Harm Caused in the Delivery of Care: Healthcare-related harms are reduced.
- Improve support for a culture of safety
- Reduce inappropriate and unnecessary care that can lead to harm
- Prevent or minimize harm in all settings
Goal 2: Strengthen persons and families as partners in their care: Persons and families are engaged as informed, empowered partners in care.
- Ensure all care delivery incorporates person and family preferences
- Improve experience of care for persons and families
- Promote self-management
Goal 3: Promote Effective Communication and Coordination of Care: Communication, care coordination, and satisfaction with care are improved.
- Reduce admissions and readmissions
- Embed best practices to enable successful transitions between all settings of care
- Enable effective healthcare system navigation
Goal 4: Promote Effective Prevention and Treatment of Chronic Disease: Leading causes of mortality are reduced and prevented.
- Increase appropriate use of screening and prevention services
- Strengthen interventions to prevent heart attacks and strokes
- Improve quality of care for people with multiple chronic conditions
- Improve behavioral health access and quality care
- Improve perinatal outcomes
Goal 5: Work with Communities to Promote Best Practices of Healthy Living: Best practices are promoted, disseminated, and used in communities.
- Partner with and support federal, state, and local public health improvement efforts
- Improve access within communities to best practices of healthy living
- Promote evidence-based community interventions to prevent and treat chronic disease
- Increase use of community-based social services and home and community-based services
Goal 6: Make Care Affordable: Quality care is affordable for individuals, families, employers, and governments.
- Develop and implement payment systems that reward value over volume
- Use cost analysis data to inform payment policies
Ignatius Bau 