What We're Reading

Health Policy Journal Club, January 2026

The health policy journal club is an interdisciplinary, inter-professional group convened monthly by the Farley Health Policy Center to discuss timely topics in health policy. A curated selection of high-yield articles provides the basis for discussion. Past topics have included income inequality and health, professionalism in medicine, patients as consumers, and adjusting payment for measures of social risk. This page presents the reading list from the most recent journal club.

This month’s discussion will focus on issues in measuring and incentivizing quality in health care — a complex challenge with implications for payment models, patient outcomes, and system performance. We’ll explore how quality is defined, the limitations of current metrics, and the unintended consequences of pay-for-performance programs.

Putting Data in Context

Nguyen CT. The Limits of Data. Issues in Science and Technology. Winter 2024.

The Performance of Pay for Performance -- Medicare and Medicaid

White J, Puthumana J, Cram P, Bai G. Reforming Medicare Quality Measurement. Health Affairs Forefront. September 30, 2025.

Skopec L, Berenson RA. The Medicare Advantage Quality Bonus Program: High Cost for Uncertain Gain. June 2023. Urban Institute.

Schiff JS, Filice CE, Chen CP. Building On 15 Years of Medicaid and CHIP Quality Measurement. Health Affairs Forefront. March 13, 2024.

The Performance of Pay for Performance -- International

Ho L, Mercer SW, Henderson D, Donaghy E, Guthrie B. Effect of UK Quality and Outcomes Framework pay-for-performance programme on quality of primary care: a systematic review with quantitative synthesis. BMJ. 2025;389.

Quality Assessment and Patient Experience 

Rosenbaum L. Reassessing quality assessment - the flawed system for fixing a flawed system. NEJM. 2022;386(17):1663-1667.

Richman BD, Schulman KA. Are patient satisfaction instruments harming both patients and physicians? JAMA Viewpoint. 2022;328(22):2209-2210.

Quality Measurement and Primary Care 

Johansen ME, Detty AS, Young Yun JD. All quality metrics are wrong; some quality metrics could become useful. Ann Fam Med 2025;23:91-92.

Young RA, Roberts RG, Holden RJ. The challenges of measuring, improving, and reporting quality in primary care. Ann Fam Med. 2017;15(2):175-182.

Phillips RL, Etz R. CMS's Universal Foundation Measures Are Not Universally Good For Primary Care. Health Affairs Forefront. May 8, 2023.