June 8, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Following the recent launch of its Advanced Primary Care Pilot Program, the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) today announced the formation of the Primary Care Measurement Advisory Panel (PCMAP), a multidisciplinary group of experts, anchored by primary care clinicians, that will bring front‑line experience and system level insight directly into the design of future NCQA primary care programs.
The panel includes practicing primary care physicians and clinical experts, health system and payer representatives, policymakers, and measurement experts who collectively reflect the diversity of modern primary care settings. Its charge is to provide strategic and technical guidance on measurement priorities, feasibility, and alignment, ensuring that future measures are clinically meaningful, actionable and capable of supporting value-based care.
“Primary care is central to better outcomes, lower costs and more equitable care, but measurement has not evolved at the same pace as practice,” said Dr. Vivek Garg, President and CEO of NCQA. “The Primary Care Measurement Advisory Panel gives us a sustained way to learn from the field and translate that insight into programs that reflect what high-quality, person-centered primary care actually looks like today.”
The PCMAP complements, but is distinct from, NCQA’s Advanced Primary Care pilot program. While the pilot program tests draft standards and measures with a small group of healthcare organizations in real-world environments, the advisory panel operates upstream, shaping priorities and design decisions before they are finalized or scaled.
“The pilot and the advisory panel play different, but equally important roles,” said Jeff Sitko, AVP of Product Management at NCQA. “The pilot lets us test in real-world settings, and it can reveal where we need to adjust our focus. The Primary Care Measurement Advisory Panel provides a complementary check from a broader set of stakeholders, bringing cross-cutting perspectives from the public sector, health plans and delivery systems to pressure-test standards and measures to ensure they’ll work in practice.”
Insights from both efforts are informing NCQA’s next-generation approach to primary care performance and value, including the use of electronic clinical quality measures and emerging FHIR-enabled digital quality measures, as well as clearer expectations for population health management, team-based care, behavioral health integration, patient experience and data exchange. Feedback from the Primary Care Measurement Advisory Panel will directly inform refinements to Advanced Primary Care standards and measures, with draft standards planned for inclusion in NCQA’s Summer 2026 Public Comment period. NCQA will also bring additional pilot findings and measure testing results to the PCMAP later this year to guide next steps.
By convening the PCMAP, NCQA is reinforcing its leadership in advancing primary care models that are measurable, sustainable and worthy of investment, supporting practices as they take on an expanded role in improving health for individuals and communities, and ensuring that the clinicians closest to that work have a direct hand in shaping how its measured.
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NCQA PCMAP Member List
- Palav Babaria, MD, MHS, Chief Quality Officer and Deputy Director of Quality and Population Health Management, California Department of Health Care Services
- Eileen Beasley, Bureau Chief of Quality, South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services
- Megan Cole Brahim, PhD, MPH, Division Director, Division of Health Policy and Insurance Research, Harvard University
- Joy Dionisio, MPH, Quality Improvement Manager, Covered California
- Noelle Dear, Senior Director, Strategic Initiatives, Aledade Health
- Osagie Ebekozien, MD, MPH, CPHQ, Chief Quality Officer, American Diabetes Association
- Anthony Fortenberry, DNP, RN, NEA-BC, VP, Population Health & Quality Assurance, Unity Health Care
- Joe Hardman, MD, MBA, Chief Medical Officer, Health Share of Oregon
- Paloma Hernandez, President and Chief Executive Officer, Urban Health Plan
- Gerardo Hernandez Diaz, CPHQ, Senior Director, Quality Improvement, Mid-Atlantic Kaiser Permanente Medical Group
- Demetria Malloy, MD, MSHS, Chief Health Officer & Chief Medical Officer, Community Health Plan of Washington
- Diane Marriott, DrPH, Director, Multipayer Initiatives, University of Michigan
- Jeffrey Norris, MD, Value-Based Payment Branch Chief, California Department of Healthcare Services
- Krishnan Narasimhan, MD, Chair, Department of Family Medicine, Stamford Health
- Jacqueline Nikpour, PhD, RN, Assistant Professor, Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing, Emory University
- Barron Patterson, MD, Vice Chair, Ambulatory Services, Department of Pediatrics, Vanderbilt University Medical Center
- Claire Sachs, Founder, TPAC Consulting and The Patient Advocate’s Chronicle
- Chris Skisak, PhD, Executive Director, Houston Business Coalition on Health
- Jeffrey Skwarek, VP, Care Delivery and Clinical Operations, CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield
- Kathie Thomas, DHA, MPH, National Senior Director, Program Development, Health Science, Research & Analytics, American Heart Association
- Stella Volpe, PhD, RDN, ACSM-CEP, FACSM, Professor, Department Head, Department of Human Nutrition, Foods and Exercise, Virginia Tech University
- Eboni Winford, PhD, MPH, Vice President of Research, River Valley Health
About NCQA
NCQA is an independent nonprofit organization that defines and drives healthcare quality through accreditation, standards, performance measurement, and expert support. For more than 35 years, NCQA has advanced transparency, accountability, and enabled healthcare organizations to deliver better outcomes for patients. NCQA’s Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS®2) is one of healthcare’s most widely used performance improvement tools. Learn more at ncqa.org. Follow NCQA on X @ncqa and on LinkedIn linkedin.com/company/ncqa.
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