With great appreciation to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

This work is supported by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) (2K2331882) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of a financial assistance award totaling $3,280,362.00 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

Funding

This webpage was supported by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of a financial assistance award totaling $3,280,362.00. The contents are those of the authors 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.