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Report: Developing Principles of Patient-Centered Measurement

In September 2016, American Institutes for Research (AIR) hosted a two-day, in-person meeting devoted to answering the question: "How would health care measurement look different if it reflected what patients say they need and want?" Supported with funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and the California Health Care Foundation, we explored ways to drive progress toward patient-centered measurement—health care measurement driven by patients’ expressed preferences, needs, and values that informs progress toward better health, better care, and lower costs.

This effort has resulted in the Principles for Making Health Care Measurement Patient-Centered. These principles offer a vision of measurement that is patient-driven, holistic, transparent, comprehensible and timely, and co-created with patients, while driving meaningful change toward better health, better care, and lower costs. When translated into action, the five principles of patient-centered measurement transform measurement in ways that reflect what patients say they need and want.

With combined efforts across all stakeholder groups—patients, patient advocates, researchers, measure developers, policymakers, health care providers and organizations, insurers, and others—we can drive progress toward better care, better health, and lower costs in ways that align with patients’ values.