WASHINGTON, June 15 /PRNewswire/ -- At its spring meeting, the AQA
alliance reached a new milestone by adopting two new sets of measures for
practitioners: a starter set of eight measures for cardiology (AQA Starter
Set for Cardiology) and a starter set of 15 measures for cardiac surgery
(AQA Starter Set for Cardiac Surgery.)
Cardiology measures include the percentage of patients who are
prescribed beta-blocker therapy after a heart attack, and the percentage of
patients with coronary artery disease who are prescribed aspirin or other
antiplatelet therapy. Cardiac surgery measures include proper timing of
antibiotics prior to cardiac surgery and risk-adjusted operative mortality
for coronary artery bypass graft patients.
AQA is the broad-based national coalition of more than 125
organizations working together on a strategy to measure, report on, and
improve physician performance. AQA's role is to reach consensus across its
broad membership and to facilitate the widespread implementation of
standard measures. AQA's member organizations represent dozens of physician
specialties, consumers, employers, government, health insurance plans, and
accrediting and quality groups.
"In an era of intense focus on the concepts of measurement, public
reporting, and evidence-based medicine, AQA is a major force in advancing
these concepts into practice, and working to further enhance patient care,"
said AQA Steering Committee member John Tooker, MD, MBA, FACP, Executive
Vice President and CEO, American College of Physicians.
AQA considers for adoption evidence-based measures, developed by such
groups as the National Committee for Quality Assurance, the AMA-convened
Physician Consortium for performance improvement, and others that have been
through a review process by the National Quality Forum.
AQA already has adopted a starter set of 26 primary care measures
targeting eight clinical areas. Many health insurance plans are working
with network physicians and physician group practices to implement the
primary care starter set. Additional sets of standard measures will be
proposed for adoption at future AQA meetings.
"With the newly adopted cardiac surgery and cardiology measures, its
original set of primary care measures, and additional measures in the
pipeline, AQA is representing the broad spectrum of medical practice," said
AQA Steering Committee member Fred H. Edwards, MD, FACS, Professor of
Surgery, University of Florida Health Science Center. Dr. Edwards
represents the Society of Thoracic Surgeons on the AQA Steering Committee.
Adoption of the new measures follows AQA's March l announcement of six
initial sites for a pilot project that will, for the first time, combine
public sector and private sector data to measure and report on physician
practice in a meaningful and transparent way for consumers and purchasers
of health care, as well as practicing physicians.
While physicians work to deliver high quality care, there have not been
sufficient data to help them identify areas needing improvement. When
physicians are provided with meaningful information, they can take action
to further improve care delivery. At the same time, useful information
provided to consumers and purchasers will allow them to make more informed
health care decisions that meet their needs.
Until recently, one roadblock to measuring and reporting of performance
at the physician level has been that it is conducted piecemeal. Physicians
with patients covered by various public and private programs have their
performance measured separately, often against different sets of measures,
for each group.
Many different private and public sector groups have attempted to step
up to the challenge by designing models for assessing performance and
reporting data. Yet, the proliferation of multiple, uncoordinated and
sometimes conflicting initiatives has significant unintended consequences
for different stakeholders.
Duplicative, piecemeal efforts:
* Unnecessarily burden physicians, other clinicians, and health insurance
plans with different data requests, shifting focus away from quality and
efficiency improvement;
* Create confusion among consumers because different information is being
publicly reported; and
* Detract from efforts by employers to design programs that meet the needs
of their employees.
Clearly, a standard, more comprehensive view of physician practice is
needed, but until now no mechanisms existed to assess performance using
standard measures or to aggregate data from various sources. The AQA pilot
will test approaches to aggregating and reporting data on physician
performance.
The pilot launched in early May, and sites expect to report data
publicly in 2007. Discussion continues about expansion of the pilot to
additional sites.
SOURCE AHIP
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Related links:
http://www.ahip.org
CONTACT:
Susan Pisano of AHIP, +1-202-778-3245; or
Karen Migdail of AHRQ, +1-301-427-1855; or Allison Ewing of ACP,
+1-215-352-2649; or Yesenia Peiker of AAFP, +1-202-232-9033,
x2540
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