PQMP Learning Collaborative

In late 2017, AHRQ—in partnership with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)—launched the Pediatric Quality Measures Program (PQMP) Learning Collaborative as a central component of the PQMP strategy to support the dissemination, implementation, performance monitoring, and quality improvement for children in Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP).

The PQMP Learning Collaborative brings together multi-disciplinary partnership teams to foster and accelerate the work of the PQMP grantees in the dissemination and implementation of key measures. The aims of the PQMP Learning Collaborative include:

• Creating opportunities to build and exchange knowledge on measure testing, implementation, and reporting processes;
• Facilitating collaborations to disseminate information gained from the implementation of quality improvement methods around key topic areas of interest;
• Providing a forum to share successes and challenges in order to build capacity and sustainability for performance monitoring and quality improvement approaches within the Medicaid/CHIP patient populations at the State, health plan, and provider levels; and
• Ensuring that the work of the PQMP grantees remains policy-relevant.

To fulfill these aims, the PQMP Learning Collaborative coordinates activities and synthesizes learnings across grantee teams. Key activities focus on addressing a set of research foci identified by CMS and AHRQ, supporting quality measurement and improvement, grounding the PQMP work in implementation science principles, and supporting the dissemination of grantees’ findings. More information about these efforts, including Lessons from the Field reports, an Implementation Science Roadmap, and Measure Implementation and Quality Improvement Toolkits, can be found on the PQMP Measure Implementation and Quality Improvement page.

In addition, the PQMP Learning Collaborative facilitates involvement from stakeholders and end users to test both the quality measures and quality improvement strategies under development by the PQMP grantees. In 2019 and 2020, the PQMP Learning Collaborative hosted five forums of the Medicaid Medical Directors Network and its membership to advance understanding related to implementation and uptake of pediatric quality measures to improve care for children covered by Medicaid or CHIP. Specific areas of focus included best practices and innovations for quality measurement approaches as well as challenges and solutions related to measure implementation at the State level, with particular attention to usability and feasibility. Through the Medicaid Medical Directors Network forums, the PQMP Learning Collaborative engaged senior clinical and policy leaders of State Medicaid programs with the PQMP mission to promote pediatric quality measurement in order to improve care for children covered by Medicaid or CHIP. The discussions enabled the PQMP Learning Collaborative to include the State policy perspective in synthesizing grantee findings around the research foci and advanced understanding of avenues for increasing uptake of pediatric quality measures among states.

On March 11, 2021, the PQMP Learning Collaborative hosted a public webinar featuring experts from Federal and State governments, as well as provider organizations, on the future of quality measurement and improvement in pediatrics. The webinar focused on lessons learned from recent quality initiatives and the shifting dynamics of pediatric care and research. Reflecting on Current and Future State of Pediatrics from a Quality Measurement Perspective describes the key findings from this webinar.

The PQMP Learning Collaborative acknowledges that broad but streamlined implementation of measures requires proactive and targeted dissemination, a clear understanding of the context in which users are operating and how that might interact with measure evaluation criteria, and innovative yet practical and tailored strategies to encourage measure uptake. The work of the PQMP Learning Collaborative advances the long-term vision for PQMP: that PQMP measures are broadly used, contributing to improvements in quality of care and elimination of child health disparities.