Associations Between Community Sociodemographics and Performance in HEDIS Quality Measures: A Study of 22 Medical Centers in a Primary Care Network

Abstract

Evaluation and payment for health plans and providers have been increasingly tied to their performance on quality metrics, which can be influenced by patient- and community-level sociodemographic factors. The aim of this study was to examine whether performance on Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS) measures varied as a function of community sociodemographic characteristics at the primary care clinic level. Twenty-two primary care sites of a large multispecialty group practice were studied during the period of April 2013 to June 2016. Significant associations were found between sites’ performance on selected HEDIS measures and their neighborhood sociodemographic characteristics. Outcome measures had stronger associations with sociodemographic factors than did process measures, with a range of significant correlation coefficients (absolute value, regardless of sign) from 0.44 to 0.72. Sociodemographic factors accounted for as much as 25% to 50% of the observed variance in measures such as HbA1c or blood pressure control.