What Do You Know About Health Quality Measures for Opioid Use Disorder?

Tools that assess care can help fill gaps in treatment

What Do You Know About Health Quality Measures for Opioid Use Disorder?
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To improve treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD), it is essential to assess care delivery using quality measures—tools that help measure or quantify health care processes, outcomes, and more. Yet although many states track overdose deaths, most are not reporting data on the effectiveness of treatment or the use of medications for OUD—the most effective form of treatment. In recognition of National Healthcare Quality Week, Oct. 16-22, see how much you know about this issue.

  1. Quality measures are tools that help evaluate _____
    1. Health care processes and outcomes
    2. Patient perceptions of their care
    3. How health care systems are organized
    4. All of the above
  2. One organization sets the gold standard for health care quality measurement in the United States.
    1. True
    2. False
  3. There is a preferred framework of care for OUD—from diagnosis to initiation, retention, and recovery. What is this course of action called?
    1. Point of care
    2. Warm handoff
    3. Cascade of care
    4. Rehabilitation
  4. What proportion of U.S. states are publicly reporting OUD treatment metrics?
    1. 1/3
    2. 3/4
    3. None
    4. All
  5. What percent of adults with Medicaid begin treatment for OUD within two weeks of diagnosis?
    1. 15%
    2. 40%
    3. 55%
    4. 80%
  6. Medication treatment for OUD should always be short term.
    1. True
    2. False
  7. In the OUD Cascade of Care, there is no validated measure for ________
    1. OUD identification or diagnosis
    2. Initiation of OUD treatment
    3. Retention in OUD treatment
    4. Recovery
Please answer all questions to get your score.

{passfail} You got {score} out of {total_questions}. Thanks for testing your quality measure smarts!

2|You missed a few, but you can still become a quality measure expert by clicking here. 5| You know a lot about quality measures for opioid use disorder, but there’s still room to learn more. 7| Congratulations, you’re an expert on quality measures for opioid use disorder!

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Issue Brief

States Should Measure Opioid Use Disorder Care

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Issue Brief

The most effective treatments for opioid use disorder (OUD) are medications: methadone, buprenorphine, and naltrexone. However, there are substantial gaps between the number of people who need these medications and those who receive them, and the United States continues to experience a devastating number of lives lost to the opioid epidemic.

A recovering drug user takes a dose of methadone
Article

How States Can Measure Effectiveness of OUD Care

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Article

Over the past year, drug overdose deaths in the United States have hit record levels, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reporting more than 100,000 fatalities between April 2021 and April 2022. An equally troubling statistic, though, is that most people with opioid use disorder (OUD) who would benefit from lifesaving therapies—that is, FDA-approved medications, including methadone, buprenorphine, and naltrexone—do not receive them.