National quality measures for child mental health care: background, progress, and next steps.

OBJECTIVE To review recent health policies related to measuring child health care quality, the selection processes of national child health quality measures, the nationally recommended quality measures for child mental health care and their evidence strength, the progress made toward developing new measures, and early lessons learned from these national efforts. METHODS Methods used included description of the selection process of child health care quality measures from 2 independent national initiatives, the recommended quality measures for child mental health care, and the strength of scientific evidence supporting them. RESULTS Of the child health quality measures recommended or endorsed during these national initiatives, only 9 unique measures were related to child mental health. CONCLUSIONS The development of new child mental health quality measures poses methodologic challenges that will require a paradigm shift to align research with its accelerated pace.