Despite being one of the most important predictors of future health, shockingly (to myself, at least) robust quality measures to assess a healthcare organization’s ability to treat obesity are sorely lacking. Of course there are quality measures that essentially assess if BMI was recorded, but given that “no conclusive evidence exists on the effectiveness of primary care-based obesity management programs,” measures that provide insight on BMI changes over time are what is needed.
Fortunately, the hard work to develop outcome measures for obesity have been developed and tested by these diligent scientists. They developed 7 measures and tested their feasibility in 10 healthcare organizations. One measure that I found particularly useful was the “Percent weight change over 9–15 months,” which reported “the proportions of patients with loss >/=10% and 5%>/= loss <10%.” There seemed to be great value of following a cohort of patients over time and monitoring their improvement…..this approach was associated with favorable results.
Bottom line: as an onsite clinic customer, you could request that your vendor provide you with a measure of BMI change over time in a cohort of patients. The measure is described by these authors and was found to be feasible to produce.
This measure is found in Measuring What Matters: Beyond Quality Performance Measures in Caring for Adults with Obesity in Population Health Management.
