October 12, 2006

Twelve Vendors Seek Software Certification for 2007

Certification exempts vendors’ clients from source code review during HEDIS® and P4P Compliance Audit™

WASHINGTON—The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) announced today that 12 software vendors will seek certification for Health Plan Employer Data and Information Set (HEDIS®) and Pay for Performance (P4P)-related software. The program uses automated testing to validate software designed to sift through health plan databases, collect relevant data and calculate results.  Ten vendors that were certified in 2006 are participating again this year.

NCQA validates vendors’ software by generating unique sets of “test case” data sets that vendors process using their software. The vendor’s output is compared to the expected results to determine if the software computes results in accordance with NCQA specifications. Certification is voluntary; vendors who achieve certification are exempt from manual source code review by NCQA auditors during the HEDIS and P4P Compliance Audits.

This year’s Software Certification includes the performance measures added to the HEDIS 2007 measurement set:

• Potentially Harmful Drug-Disease Interactions in the Elderly
• Relative Resource Use for People With Acute Low Back Pain
• Relative Resources Use for People With Asthma
• Relative Resource Use for People With Diabetes

“Vendors who achieve certification have proven that they are more than capable of helping their clients gather and deliver the most accurate results possible,” said Mary Braman, Director, Licensure and Certification, NCQA. “We commend the vendors committed to the program, and we look forward to working with them in meeting clients’ reporting needs.”

Eleven vendors are seeking HEDIS Software Certification, which tests the entire HEDIS measurement set. Seven vendors are seeking Limited Software Certification, which tests only a portion of the HEDIS measurement set and/or California’s Pay for Performance (P4P) clinical measurement set. 

The first completed certifications are scheduled for January 2007. 

As in previous years, Catalyst Technologies, Inc. and TierMed Systems, LLC are serving as beta test sites in preparation for this year’s testing.

VENDORS SEEKING SOFTWARE CERTIFICATION
 

Software Vendor	Product(s)
Austin Provider Solutions, Inc	The HEDIS.com Solution
Catalyst Technologies, Inc.	Quality Spectrum (SAS) Quality Spectrum Insight (SQL Server)
DST Health Solutions	CompareCare™ Integrated Solutions
Founding Medical Informatics, Inc.	HEDIS® Advantage™
Integration Management, Inc.	Integrated Health Decision Support
Ingenix, Inc.	Procise Perform
Innoapp, LLC	Innoapp HEDIS
McKesson Health Solutions, LLC	CareEnhance® HealthPlan Reporter™
ODIS, LLC	ODIS HEDISPro
Q Mark, Inc.	HEDISHelp
TierMed Systems, LLC	Compass Navigator
VIPs, Inc.	MedMeasures 2007

For more information on the Software Certification programs or to request an application, contact Anne Marie Smith, Software Certification Manager, at (303) 651-6995.

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.

# # #