With great appreciation to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services

This work is supported by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) (2K2331882) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of a financial assistance award totaling $3.28 million with 100 percent funded by CMS/HHS. The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by CMS/HHS, or the U.S. Government.

vitality signs Overview

Purpose

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  • Catalyze a vision of health care centered on needs of the people who seek it

  • Employ a whole person approach that fosters an ability to know how people are doing and if they are getting care that aligns with their needs

  • Create a measure and process that focuses on patient voice and patient reported data

Approach

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  • Environmental mapping to identify and build upon the state of the art

  • Crowdsourcing to fill gaps in published works

  • Starfield Summit to ensure findings are pragmatic and actionable

  • Measure and conversation map that synthesize findings

Why It Matters

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  • Current health care delivery is fragmented and impersonal

  • The measure and conversation map generated by this project can create and enable a space for whole person care delivery

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Publications

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Starfield Summit IX

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Changing Care: A Whole Person Approach was a Starfield Summit held September 10-12, 2025, in Washington, DC that brought together experts and multi-sector participants with the goals to:

  • Inform development of a question set responsive to what patients say they want and need

  • Explore dimensions of implementation that will shape how, when, and where the question set is used

  • Understand multi-sector perspectives on information use and find commonalities that point to a common path

  • Identify concrete opportunities and strategies to move the work forward

Additional Resources

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  • … coming in 2026

Learn More

Funding

This work is supported by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) (2K2331882) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of a financial assistance award totaling $3.28 million with 100 percent funded by CMS/HHS. The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by CMS/HHS, or the U.S. Government. Dr. Etz and Ms. Reves, included in those funded by this work, are co-founders of Smart Measures, LLC, a company that was contracted for service on this project. They have ownership interests in the company and serve as members/advisors.