Appendix B: Key Definitions

Alternative Payment Model (APM): “Payment approach that gives added incentive payments to provide high‐quality and cost‐efficient care. APMs can apply to a specific clinical condition, a care episode, or a population.”23

Interoperability: “The ability of different information systems, devices, and applications (systems) to access, exchange, integrate and cooperatively use data in a coordinated manner, within and across organizational, regional, and national boundaries, to provide timely and seamless portability of information and optimize the health of individual and populations globally.”24

Medical‐Dental Integration: “An approach to care that integrates and coordinates dental medicine into primary care and behavioral health to support individual and population health.”25

Quality: “The degree to which healthcare services for individuals and populations increase the likelihood of desired health outcomes and are consistent with current professional knowledge.”26

Quality Measure: “Tools that help us measure or quantify healthcare processes, outcomes, patient perceptions, and organizational structure and/or systems that are associated with the ability to provide high‐quality healthcare and/or that relate to one or more quality goals for healthcare. These goals include effective, safe, efficient, patient‐centered, equitable, and timely care.”27

Value‐based Care: “Care delivery model in which providers are rewarded for quality health outcomes rather than the quantity of care delivered. In this approach, providers focus on improving the health of a population of patients by offering care that is focused on prevention, best evidence, and personalization.”28

23 Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). “APMs Overview”. https://qpp.cms.gov/apms/overview. 24 Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS). “Interoperability in Healthcare”. https://www.himss.org/resources/interoperability‐healthcare. 25 DentaQuest. “Medical‐Dental Integration”. https://dentaquest.com/oral‐health‐resources/medical‐dental‐integration/. 26 Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. “Understanding Quality Measurement”. https://www.ahrq.gov/professionals/quality‐patient‐safety/quality‐resources/tools/chtoolbx/understand/index.html. 27 CMS. “Quality Measure”. https://www.cms.gov/medicare/quality‐initiatives‐patient‐assessment‐instruments/qualitymeasures/index.html. 28 DentaQuest. “Value‐Based Care”. https://dentaquest.com/oral‐health‐resources/value‐based‐care/.