Measuring what matters: Creating and adopting quality metrics to address substance use disorders

This presentation describes the process of creating and implementing substance use disorder (SUD) related quality metrics at the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program (BHCHP). The presenter will give a brief overview of BHCHP's quality improvement program. In light of the current epidemic of SUD- related morbidity and mortality, and the high prevalence of SUDs in the homeless population, the presenter will describe BHCHP's process of adding SUD related quality metrics to our quality plan. The presenter will discuss data related to SUD prevalence in the general, homeless, and BHCHP populations. The presenter will describe the process used at BHCHP to identify and adopt appropriate, feasible, and evidence based quality metrics for SUDs and will review the recent literature surrounding quality metrics for SUDs in primary care. Next, the presenter will describe the process of determining the feasibility of the possible metrics, including how to identify available data sources, planning process and workflows, and exploring appropriate homegrown metrics. The presenter will describe how to include staff, consumers, and other stakeholders in choosing the SUD quality metrics. The presenter will also detail the process of defining the numerators and denominators of the measures as well as inclusion and exclusion criteria to calculate a baseline rate, set goals, and facilitate a discussion of intervention planning. Throughout, this discussion will use BHCHP's metrics as an example. The presenter will also discuss plans for tracking progress with each of the metrics.