Treatment prescribed for Acute Migraine Attacks

Measure Purpose: Use guideline recommended or FDA approved/cleared acute treatment for migraine to provide superior pain relief

The numerator: Patients who were prescribed a guideline recommended or FDA approved/cleared treatment for acute migraine attacks once during the measurement period

is divided by

The denominator: Patients > 6 years of age diagnosed with migraine

Exclusions are removed from the denominator for:

• Emergency department and urgent care visits on date of presentation
• All guideline-recommended or FDA approved/cleared treatments are medically contraindicated or ineffective for the patient
• Patient is already on an effective over-the-counter (OTC) medication or an acute migraine medication prescribed by another clinician
• Patient has history of acute migraine medication overuse and additional medications contraindicated at time of visit
• Patient has minimal or no pain with migraine
• Patient and/or caregiver decline

Key Phrases

Examples of key phrases you could use to meet the measure include:

• Sumatriptan
• Guideline recommended treatment prescribed

Measure Calculation Example

Dr. Young had 25 patients over the age of 6 with migraine headache between January 1 and December 31. This is the denominator. One patient has a contraindication to the guideline-recommended therapies, two have adequately controlled migraines with OTC medications or NSAIDS, and one is already on an acute migraine medication prescribed by another clinician. These four (1+2+1) patients are removed from the denominator.

Of the remaining 21 patients, 15 were prescribed a guideline-recommended medication. This is the numerator.

Quality of care = 15/(25-4). Dr. Young has a score of 71% for this measure.