History

John E. Ware, Jr., PhD founded QualityMetric with James E. Dewey, PhD and Ralph J. Perfetto, Jr., in 1997. They teamed up to take the work that John and others had done developing the world’s most widely used health surveys, and expand their application and utility. Using emerging technologies as ubiquitous as the Internet and as complex as computerized adaptive testing (CAT), they set out to make these health surveys more accessible to patients, and the results more meaningful and useful for decision-makers across the health care spectrum.

The ensuing years have brought the development of much improved versions of the SF-36^® and SF-12^® Health Surveys, as well as the emergence of the SF-8™ Health Survey and the SF-10™ Health Survey for Children. Disease-specific health surveys like the Asthma Control Test™ (ACT™), Headache Impact Test™ (HIT-6™), and the Pain Impact Questionnaire™ (PIQ-6™) are also available, with many more in various stages of development.

Our health surveys, which were originally available to be taken only on paper or via interview, are now offered in multiple modes of administration, such as online, PDA, and more. Responses are collected automatically, checked for data quality issues, and scored using special algorithms, with results available in a variety of reports. 

In March 2010, QualityMetric was acquired by UnitedHealth Group (UHG) and is now part of OptumInsight, a UHG company.

Click here for an animated timeline of important events in our history.