About FlashAlert on Twitter:
FlashAlert utilizes the free service Twitter to distribute emergency text messages. While you are welcome to register your cell phone text message address directly into the FlashAlert system, we recommend that you simply "follow" the FlashAlert account for Oregon Health Authority by clicking on the link below and logging in to (or creating) your free Twitter account. Twitter sends messages out exceptionally fast thanks to arrangements they have made with the cell phone companies.
Click here to add Oregon Health Authority to your Twitter account or create one.
@OHAOregon
December 6, 2022
Media Contact: Liz Gharst, elizabeth.a.gharst@state.or.us, 971-666-2476
PORTLAND, Ore. – Oregon Health Authority’s Quality Incentive Program has published a new CCO performance metric dashboard so people can quickly find their metric of interest, see individual Coordinated Care Organization (CCO) trends over time and explore demographic breakouts at the CCO level.
The dashboard is OHA’s first presentation of quality measures broken out by Race, Ethnicity, Language, and Disability- (REALD) compliant data. REALD is a set of standards that offers more detailed demographic data.
Creation of the CCO performance metric dashboard follows OHA’s publication, in August 2022, of the CCO Metrics 2021 Final Report, a summary of performance by Oregon’s CCOs in 2021, which showed the results of Oregon’s Quality Incentive Program. The program provides financial rewards to CCOs for improving the quality of care provided to Oregon Health Plan members; the report highlighted statewide performance for 14 incentivized measures.
The report showed that although the COVID-19 public health emergency continued and the Delta variant drove a surge in hospitalizations and deaths, performance on CCO incentive metrics began to rebound in 2021 after sharp declines in 2020. However, the report showed only statewide averages for all CCO members, which can disguise inequities.
The REALD data included in the CCO performance metric dashboard includes data broken out by up to 42 race and ethnicity groups that were determined by the most affected communities. The metrics data is also broken out by up to 58 languages, including sign language and other less-commonly spoken languages. OHA will continue to refine how REALD data is used and reported in this dashboard and elsewhere.
Identifying and addressing inequities by REALD categories is essential to OHA’s strategic goal of eliminating health inequities by 2030. For example, Oregon is one of the first states in the United States to collect and publish health data on Pacific Islanders from countries affected by the Compact of Free Association (COFA) treaty. The treaty is the result of U.S. military occupation, atomic nuclear testing and ballistic military exercises that contaminated much of the environment and impacted the health of generations. There is very little health data on COFA citizens in Oregon and the collection of REALD data will allow the agency to understand how they have been affected by health inequities and state policies, and ensure that CCOs work toward improving access and quality of services for this community.
The CCO metric performance dashboard shows trends and disparities, but not why they are happening.
“The dashboard is a starting point, laying the groundwork to engage communities in the future direction of the CCO Quality Incentive Program. Relying on quantitative data alone can have negative impacts,” said Stacey Schubert, director of Health Analytics at OHA. “Context and community input and engagement are needed to understand the meaning of the quantitative data in the dashboard.”
To view the dashboard, visit here.