AQA Invitational Meeting Summary

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AQA Invitational Meeting

Summary

The AQA held its seventh meeting to review the activities of workgroups on the Alliance's mission and governance, performance measurement, and data sharing and aggregation. Updates were presented on measures for physician performance, cost of care, as well as principles of appropriateness, proposed new quality measures, and the role of health information technology. The meeting was held May 30, 2007.

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Introduction

The AQA, formerly known as the Ambulatory Care Quality Alliance, was founded in the fall of 2004 with a mission to improve health care quality and patient safety. The Alliance sought to achieve these goals through:

A collaborative process in which key stakeholders agree on a strategy for measuring performance at the physician or group level.
Collecting and aggregating data in the least burdensome way.
Reporting meaningful information to consumers, physicians, and other stakeholders to inform choices and improve outcomes.

The AQA's work focuses on key areas that can help identify quality gaps, control skyrocketing cost trends, reduce confusion and burdens in the marketplace, and otherwise address the challenges of the current health care system.

The timing of this stakeholder process has coincided with a growing interest in rewarding high-quality providers (through "pay for performance" or "p4p") and clinicians' burgeoning interest in adopting health information technology (HIT) to enhance the quality, safety, and efficiency of care delivery.

The May 30, 2007, AQA meeting was convened to review the activities of two of the AQA's three workgroups (on performance measurement, and data sharing and aggregation). Participants also discussed the AQA's governance processes, including membership and voting processes. In addition, participants received updates on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)/AQA pilot projects and value exchanges. Carolyn Clancy, M.D., director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), chaired the meeting.

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