By: Janet P. Sutton, PhD, Lauren Silver, BA, Lucia Hammer, MBA, and Alycia Infante, MPA NORC
Prepared for: Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE)
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
Submitted by: NORC at the University of Chicago and Health Policy and Evaluation, Georgetown University
Executive Summary (in PDF format, 11 pages)
Acknowledgements
Although the authors take sole responsibility for the contents of this report, we would like to thank Laurie Feinberg, our ASPE Project Officer, and Susan Polniaszek who provided thoughtful input and guidance throughout the course of the project. We would also like to thank our subcontractor, Robert Friedland, at Georgetown University, for his many contributions in designing the interview guides, conducting interviews, and providing insight on evaluation designs. Likewise, we very much appreciate the helpful advice and guidance given to us by our study consultant, Shoshanna Sofaer. We gratefully acknowledge the contributions of the members of our Technical Expert Panel who as a group and individually reviewed the evaluation design options and provided us with substantive advice.
Our appreciation goes out to the staff and key informants at each of the nine QIOs that we visited who graciously took of their time to answer our many questions about their work and provided us with a more substantive understanding of the QIO program. In addition, we are very grateful to the staff at CMS and the Institute of Medicine who met with us and provided us with materials to better understand QIO program operations.
Finally, we are very much indebted to our current NORC colleagues Claudia Schur, Caitlin Oppenheimer, Alene Kennedy, Jessica Bushar, Jyoti Gupta and our former NORC colleagues Holly Stockdale, Alana Ketchel, Jennifer Benz, and Jenissa Haidari, without whose hard work and tireless assistance in various stages of this project, including developing the study protocol, designing and populating the QIO Inventory, conducting the site visits, and reviewing reports and other products, this project could not have been completed.