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URAC Releases Measurement Guidelines to Gauge Health Care Organizations' Efforts Towards Consumer Protection and Empowerment and Promoting Quality Health Care

Posted on: Friday, 8 September 2006, 00:00 CDT

WASHINGTON, Sept. 7 /PRNewswire/ -- Today URAC called for public comment on an initial set of health care management service measures. The measures, released today, will be applied across nine of URAC's accreditation programs. The goal of the proposed program is to create and maintain health care management services measures to promote consumer protection and quality improvement. URAC is seeking input from health care management organizations and health plans in the form of comments and potential additional metrics for the program through its formal "call for measures." The deadline for public comment is October 6, 2006.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20030501/URACLOGO )

These measures will be used to collect relevant information about consumer protection and empowerment and quality data for comparison across five categories: operational service quality, access to services, clinical decision making/support, quality improvement, and customer/consumer satisfaction.

URAC is the independent, nonprofit organization well-known as a leader in promoting health care quality through its accreditation and certification programs. The proposed measurement program will be applied to URAC accreditation programs for Health Plan, Health Network, Health Utilization Management, Case Management, Disease Management, Health Call Center, Independent Review Organization, Health Web Site, and Workers' Compensation Utilization Management.

These measures demonstrate the linkage between accreditation outcomes and the Institute of Medicine's (IOM) six aims of health care quality. URAC also released a white paper regarding its health care management service measures program, which further illustrates the linkage between URAC's operational service quality, access to services, clinical decision making/support, quality improvement, and customer/consumer satisfaction measures and the IOM six aims of quality health care: safe, effective, patient-centered, timely, efficient and equitable care. The paper is accessible through its web page, http://www.urac.org/. The paper also gives an overview of the measurement guidelines outlining examples of measures to be used.

"URAC's accreditation and monitoring programs provide tremendous value in giving regulators, purchasers, and consumers the confidence that accredited companies have met a comprehensive set of quality standards," said Alan Spielman, URAC's president and chief executive officer. "Moreover, the accreditation review process itself provides opportunities for URAC experts to share best practices and other recommendations to assist companies in their quality improvement efforts. However, URAC has not to date had a way to provide accredited companies or other stakeholders with ongoing measurements of how the organization delivers on its service commitment to consumers and clients. This initiative provides URAC with a new capability that will be phased in over several years."

URAC intends to begin collecting data from the measures in 2007. Starting in 2008, data collected through the measurement program will be used to create a range of baseline data for participating companies to view and anonymously assess their performance as compared with the industry baseline. Only aggregate industry data will be publicly released during the initial two-year measurement and reporting period, although participating organizations would be free to independently release their individual data. URAC will later consider whether, with the consent and cooperation of participating organizations, to report individual company data to the public.

Sample measures would include tracking client or consumer satisfaction rates, types of quality improvement programs an organization has in place, clinical staffing levels, and even consumer telephone access to ask a question or make a complaint.

"This measurement program will allow URAC-accredited companies to compare their performance to their peers in five quality performance domains," said Douglas Metz, DC, chairman of the URAC Standards Committee. "As the measures and data sets develop, URAC will have a snapshot of care management industry trends that can be used to spotlight best practices and enhance the URAC standards."

The standardized measures will also give employers and purchasers the option to ask URAC-accredited companies to voluntarily release their individual measures so purchasers can make an "apples to apples" comparison of health plan performance.

"This is the first draft of measures in a dynamic process, so we are seeking comments about the program, about specific measures, and for comments about new measures that may be added," said John P. DuMoulin, MS, CAE, URAC's vice president of government relations and product development. "We are asking health plans and health management organizations to offer suggestions related to any aspect of data collection that they would deem to be beneficial, such as how to better articulate a measure or how a measure would apply to their current operational processes."

The preferred online Web-based mechanism to receive public comment is available via the link at http://www.urac.org/. Alternatively, comments may be submitted via email to comments@urac.org with the subject line "Comments- Standards," or mailed to URAC, attention: Public Comments-Standards, 1220 L Street NW, Suite 400, Washington, D.C. 20005; or via FAX to "Attention: Public Comments-Standards" at 202-216-9006.

About URAC

URAC, an independent, nonprofit organization, is well-known as a leader in promoting health care quality through its accreditation and certification programs. URAC offers a wide range of quality benchmarking programs and services that keep pace with the rapid changes in the health care system, and provide a symbol of excellence for organizations to validate their commitment to quality and accountability. Through its broad-based governance structure and an inclusive standards development process, URAC ensures that all stakeholders are represented in establishing meaningful quality measures for the entire health care industry. For more information, visit http://www.urac.org/.

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URAC

CONTACT: Karla Hurter for URAC, +1-703-319-0957,khurter@health2resources.com

Web site: http://www.urac.org/

Source: PRNewswire

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