October 20, 2005
Nine Software Vendors Seek Certification for HEDIS® 2006
Testing includes new HEDIS measures; results to be announced in December
WASHINGTON—The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) today identified nine commercial software vendors that will seek NCQA certification of their Health Plan Employer Data and Information Set (HEDIS®)–related software. NCQA will give each vendor a number of “test cases” to process using their software; their output is then compared to expected results to determine if a software product properly collects data from health plan databases and calculates accurate results.
Four of the nine vendors will also participate in the Limited Software Certification program, which certifies software packages that produce results for partial or custom measurement sets. Many organizations, such as the Pay for Performance (P4P) program in California, purchase such software to meet specialized data reporting and quality improvement needs.
“Companies that create software products that can quickly and accurately calculate and report HEDIS scores provide a critical service to their health plan clients,” said Mary Braman, NCQA Director of Licensure and Certification. “Good software products allow plans to spend less time preparing and reporting data and more time doing what they do best—improving the care they deliver to their members. We commend the vendors committed to the program.”
Certification is voluntary; vendors who achieve certification are exempt from manual source code review by NCQA auditors during the HEDIS Compliance Audit®. Results of the testing will be announced in December.
The “test decks” used as part of this year’s Software Certification reviews will include ten new HEDIS 2006 measures. Notable among them are:
• Inappropriate Antibiotic Treatment for Adults With Acute Bronchitis
• Use of Spirometry Testing in the Assessment and Diagnosis of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD)
• Disease Modifying Anti-Rheumatic Drug Therapy in Rheumatoid Arthritis
• Follow-Up Care for Children Prescribed Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) Medication
• Drugs to Be Avoided in the Elderly
As in previous years, TierMed Systems, LLC and Catalyst Technologies, Inc. are serving as beta test sites in preparation for this year’s testing.
For more information on the HEDIS Software CertificationSM program or to request an application, call Mary Braman, Director, Licensure and Certification, at (202) 955-3583 or go to to Software Certification Web page.
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.
VENDORS SEEKING HEDIS 2006 SOFTWARE CERTIFICATION
|
Software Vendor |
Product(s) |
| Austin Provider Solutions, Inc. * |
The HEDIS.com Solution |
| Catalyst Technologies, Inc. * |
Quality Spectrum
Quality Spectrum Focused Insight |
| DST Health Solutions |
CompareCareTM Integrated Solutions |
| Emdeon Business Services |
MedMeasures 2006 |
| Ingenix |
Procise Perform |
| McKesson Health Solutions, LLC |
CareEnhance® HealthPlan Reporter™ |
| ODIS, LLC |
ODIS HEDISPro |
| Q Mark, Inc. * |
HEDISHelp |
| TierMed Systems, LLC * |
Compass Navigator |
* denotes additional participation in the Limited Software Certification program.
HEDIS® and HEDIS Compliance Audit® are registered trademarks of NCQA.
HEDIS Software CertificationSM is a service mark of NCQA.
All rights reserved.