NEW CLINICIAN-LEVEL MEASURES UNVEILED FOR PUBLIC COMMENT

Measures assessing rheumatoid arthritis, chronic wound care among those proposed by NCQA, Mathematica, and AMA

WASHINGTON—The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA), in collaboration with Mathematica Policy Research and the American Medical Association (AMA)-convened Physician Consortium for Performance ImprovementTM, today released a set of measures assessing clinician performance in four areas of care for public comment.  Twenty-two measures in four clinical topic areas comprise the set released for comment. These measures  may be used for quality improvement efforts, maintenance of certification programs or pay-for-performance initiatives.

“The link between quality measurement and improvement has been established by more than a decade’s worth of data,” said NCQA President Margaret E. O’Kane.  “Our partnership with Mathematica and the Consortium to develop these and other specialized measures of care has helped shine the light of quality measurement in places it hasn’t been before--and will help CMS and others drive quality improvement in these areas of care.”

Clinician-level measures allow physicians, nurse practitioners and other health professionals to improve performance in specialty areas. The measures under consideration assess:

• rheumatoid arthritis care,
• palliative/end-of-life care,
• endoscopy and polyp surveillance, 
• chronic wound care.

“The Consortium is committed to developing evidence-based performance measures to help physicians continue to improve the quality of patient care,” said Consortium Chair Bernard M. Rosof, M.D., MACP. “The Consortium has collaborated with medical specialty experts and health quality experts to develop these measure sets. We look forward to receiving input from physicians and others during this public comment process so we can continue to refine the measures.”

All topic areas for public comment will be available for review on NCQA’s Web site, www.ncqa.org, through July 1. All interested parties are invited to comment.

About NCQA
NCQA is a private, non-profit organization dedicated to improving health care quality. NCQA is the nation’s leading developer of health care evaluation tools including health plan accreditation, physician recognition and organization certification. NCQA also is responsible for the evolution of HEDIS®, the most widely used set of health care performance measures. 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 choices. For more information, visit www.ncqa.org.  

About Mathematica
Mathematica, a nonpartisan firm, conducts policy research and surveys for federal and state governments, foundations, and private-sector clients. The employee-owned company, with offices in Princeton, N.J., Washington, D.C., and Cambridge, Mass., has conducted some of the most important studies of disability, health care, early childhood policies, welfare, education, employment, and nutrition programs in the U.S. Mathematica strives to improve public well-being by bringing the highest standards of quality, objectivity, and excellence to bear on the provision of information collection and analysis to its clients.

About the Consortium
The American Medical Association (AMA)-convened Physician Consortium for Performance ImprovementTM is committed to enhancing quality of care and patient safety by taking the lead in the development, testing, and implementation of evidence-based clinical performance measures and outcomes reporting tools for physicians.  The Consortium is currently composed of over 100 national medical specialty and state medical societies; the Council of Medical Specialty Societies, American Board of Medical Specialties and its member-boards; experts in methodology and data collection; the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. 

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