# Advancing & Improving Measurement and Value in Primary Care (The AIM-PC Starfield Summit)

> **NIH AHRQ R13** · VIRGINIA CENTER FOR HEALTH INNOVATION · 2021 · $47,792

## Abstract

Project Abstract:
Our current health care system is overpriced and underperforming in part due to failure to nurture high-
performing primary care. Related to this, the US lacks consensus on a parsimonious set of measures capable
of focusing primary care on its high-value functions. To address these challenges and AHRQ’s priorities of
improving health care affordability, efficiency and cost transparency, the Virginia Center for Health Innovation,
in partnership with the Center for Professionalism and Value in Health Care and the University of Michigan
VBID Center, is requesting a one-year AHRQ Conference Grant to support the convening, development of
work products, and dissemination and implementation of results for the AIM-PC Starfield Summit, entitled
“Advancing & Improving Measurement and Value in Primary Care.” Initiated in 2016, the Starfield Summits are
“envisioned as an ongoing series of meetings… among a diverse group of leaders in primary care research
and policy, intended to galvanize its participants, generate important discussion for public consumption, and
enable research and policy agenda-setting in support of primary care function.” AHRQ was a supporter of the
3rd Starfield Summit that helped produce the Patient Centered Primary Care Measure which is now endorsed
by CMS as a QCDR MIPS measure and which is going through NQF endorsement. We propose a 5th Starfield
Summit to address the challenge of measurement in primary care. Nested within the broader conversation
about “Measures that Matter for Primary Care”1-3 will be a focused conversation on how to specifically increase
its value through measurement and reduction of low value care (LVC) by primary care providers. There are
now hundreds of tests and procedures considered unnecessary, identified by the Choosing Wisely campaign,
the US Preventive Services Task Force, international entities, and even commercial software. Desperately
needed is consensus on which LVC measures matter most – to payors, academics, clinicians, policymakers,
and patients, especially those in priority populations. Our Summit and its summary writings will frame primary
care LVC in the context of overall payment reform, review and identify the range of LVC recommendations,
develop criteria for evaluating LVC measures, establish feasibility for LVC measure implementation, achieve
consensus on a concise set of LVC indicators specific to primary care; and disseminate the selected measure
set for widescale implementation. We will achieve this aim through the virtual assembly of leading LVC and
primary care measures advisors and executing two rating and ranking surveys to yield desired deliverables.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10294316
- **Project number:** 1R13HS028533-01
- **Recipient organization:** VIRGINIA CENTER FOR HEALTH INNOVATION
- **Principal Investigator:** Beth A Bortz
- **Activity code:** R13 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** AHRQ
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $47,792
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2021-09-30 → 2022-09-29

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10294316

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10294316, Advancing & Improving Measurement and Value in Primary Care (The AIM-PC Starfield Summit) (1R13HS028533-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10294316. Licensed CC0.

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