August 9, 2005
NQF Endorses AMA/Physician Consortium and NCQA Quality Measures
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Physician performance measures developed by the American Medical Association-convened Physician Consortium for Performance Improvement (Consortium) and the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) have received endorsement by the National Quality Forum (NQF). The measures were also developed in collaboration with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).
“These measures are a proactive step by the physician community to encourage quality improvement and accountability,” said Nancy H. Nielsen, M.D., Ph.D., speaker of the AMA House of Delegates and Consortium member. “The NQF endorsement of these measures is a critical first step toward national standardization of physician clinical performance measures.”
This effort addresses the need for a standard and uniform set of physician-level clinical quality measures. The NQF’s endorsement paves the way for the measures’ use in a broad range of public- and private-sector quality improvement efforts.
The measures are designed to provide information on the quality of care for such conditions as asthma, depression, osteoarthritis, diabetes, heart disease and prenatal care. The resulting data will be used to assist physicians in enhancing the quality of their care. While the measures are designed to be used with electronic health records, they can also be used with paper sources.
“Standardized measures will help inform patient and purchaser choice, and help physicians direct their quality improvement efforts,” said L. Gregory Pawlson, M.D., M.P.H., NCQA Executive Vice President. “These measures are a key step forward to collecting and reporting quality data at the physician practice level. We’re pleased to have worked with the AMA, CMS and NQF to achieve consensus.”
“The Physician Consortium has been dedicated to developing evidence-based physician performance measures since 2000,” said Josie R. Williams, M.D., M.M.M., Consortium co-chair. “This important work needs to expand to all specialty areas of care and prevention, and the Consortium is dedicated to meeting this need for quality measures.”
About the Consortium
The Physician Consortium for Performance Improvement (Consortium) includes physicians and experts in methodology convened by the American Medical Association (AMA). The Consortium includes representatives from more than 65 national medical specialty and state medical societies, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and others.
About NCQA
NCQA is a private, non-profit organization dedicated to improving health care quality. NCQA accredits and certifies a wide range of health care organizations 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.