October 20, 2006
New Quality Measures for Physician-level HEDIS® Released for Public Comment
Measures to be part of HEDIS Physicians Volume
WASHINGTON— The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) has released for public comment a set of measures of ambulatory care quality that will help health plans measure the quality of care at the physician level. These proposed measures will form the foundation of a new Health Plan Employer Data and Information Set® (HEDIS) designed to assess clinical quality at the physician level.
“By adding physician-level measures to our existing measures, we add another layer of health care quality information to use in health plan comparison,” said NCQA Executive Vice President Greg Pawlson, M.D., M.P.H. “We hope the public comment will allow stakeholders to weigh in on how to appropriately collect and implement measures for physicians.”
The measures are designed to allow health plans to report physician performance for their network. Not only do the measures provide technical specifications, but they also include implementation methods, such as appropriate sample sizing. NCQA is interested in how well these measures can be implemented in a health plan setting.
The measures contain six prevention measures, such as breast cancer screening and influenza vaccination, as well as coronary artery disease, depression and asthma measures. Measures addressing overuse and misuse are also included.
The draft measures represent a broad-based consensus of what quality care is from several respected organizations. Developed by NCQA, the measures were included in the National Quality Forum-endorsed National Voluntary Consensus Standards for Physician-Focused Ambulatory Care. The Ambulatory Care Quality Alliance (AQA) adopted these measures as part of the Recommended Starter Set of Clinical Performance Measures for Ambulatory Care. Draft measures are available at NCQA’s Web site, www.ncqa.org. Interested parties are invited to comment on the measures through October 27. Final measures will be released early November.
Those with feedback about measure implementation that are not addressed in the specifications are strongly encouraged to submit comments. The measures, along with additional input from the public comment period, will frame an electronic HEDIS Physician starter set to be released in November as well as a complete HEDIS Physician volume to be released early 2007.
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.
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