New Quality Measures for Medical Specialties Unveiled for Public Comment; CMS Awaits Measures Proposed By NCQA, Mathematica, AMA for Consideration for Voluntary Reporting
Posted on: Friday, 14 July 2006, 09:00 CDT
The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA), in collaboration with Mathematica Policy Research, the American Medical Association (AMA) and the AMA-convened Physician Consortium for Performance Improvement(TM) (Consortium), today released the first in a series of physician quality measures for public comment that focus on specialty care. The measures will be considered for use by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to capture data about the quality of care delivered to Medicare beneficiaries.
While significant efforts are underway to measure and report on the quality of care at the physician or physician practice level, most have focused on primary care rather than care delivered by specialists and subspecialists. Generally accepted performance measures, such as the Health Plan Employer Data and Information Set (HEDIS(R)) or AMA/Consortium measures of ambulatory care, tend to focus on delivery of preventive care, primary care disease management, or general care for the elderly.
"Patients have a right to information about the performance of their physicians. These new specialty care measures will increase the universe of information we know about physician performance," said NCQA President Margaret E. O'Kane. "We're delighted to have partnered with Mathematica and the Consortium in their development."
"The Consortium is committed to developing evidence-based performance measures to help physicians continue to improve the quality of patient care," said Consortium Co-Chair Bernard M. Rosof, M.D., M.A.C.P. "The Consortium has collaborated with medical specialty experts and health quality experts to develop these measure sets. We look forward to receiving input from physicians and others during this public comment process so we can continue to refine the measures."
The eight sets of specialty measures, developed with the support of a contract from CMS, will be released in three phases for public comment. The measures released today for public comment assess aspects of eye care, osteoporosis and perioperative care. Over the next few months, measures related to stroke care, skin cancer, geriatrics, emergency care and gastroesophogeal reflux disease will be released for public comment.
To view and comment on the measure sets, log on to www.ncqa.org.
About NCQA
NCQA is a private, non-profit organization dedicated to improving health care quality. NCQA accredits and certifies a wide range of health care organizations, recognizes physicians and physician groups in key clinical areas and manages the evolution of HEDIS, the tool the nation's health plans use to measure and report on their performance. NCQA is committed to providing health care quality information through the Web, media and data licensing agreements in order to help consumers, employers and others make more informed health care choices.
About Mathematica
Mathematica, a nonpartisan firm, conducts policy research and surveys for federal and state governments, foundations, and private-sector clients. The employee-owned company, with offices in Princeton, N.J., Washington, D.C., and Cambridge, Mass., has conducted some of the most important studies of health care, disability, early childhood policies, welfare, education, employment, and nutrition programs in the U.S. Mathematica strives to improve public well-being by bringing the highest standards of quality, objectivity, and excellence to bear on the provision of information collection and analysis to its clients.
About the Consortium
The American Medical Association (AMA)-convened Physician Consortium for Performance Improvement is committed to enhancing quality of care and patient safety by taking the lead in the development, testing, and implementation of evidence-based clinical performance measures and outcomes reporting tools for physicians. The Consortium is currently comprised of over 100 national medical specialty and state medical societies; the Council of Medical Specialty Societies, American Board of Medical Specialties and its member-boards; experts in methodology and data collection; the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
Source: Business Wire
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