Workshop Summary, A Path Forward to Measuring Continuing Care Management for Substance Use Illness: Patient-Focused Episodes of Care 

This project built upon prior work at NQF completed under the National Voluntary Consensus Standards for the Treatment of Substance Use Conditions: Evidence-Based Treatment Practices project, as well as work under the auspices of the patient-focused episodes of care project which has developed a measurement framework for evaluating efficiency—defined as quality and costs—across the full trajectory of an illness.The goal of this project was to lay a path forward to operationalize measurement of the NQF-endorsed practice of continuing care management of substance use illness by applying NQF’s measurement framework for evaluating efficiency across patient-focused episodes of care. The project was guided by a Planning Committee, chaired by Allen S. Daniels, EdD (Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance), and comprised of experts from the substance use illness community and others with expertise in performance measurement (Appendix A). Primary support for this project was provided by the Open Society Institute (OSI) and the Department of Health and Human Services’ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).