AQA Invitational Meeting

Summary

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The AQA held its fifth meeting to review the activities of three workgroups on performance measurement, reporting, and data sharing and aggregation. The meeting was held October 24, 2006.

Select to access the first, second, third, and fourth meetings.

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Introduction

The AQA (formerly known as the Ambulatory Care Quality Alliance) was founded in the fall of 2004. Its mission is to improve health care quality and patient safety through a collaborative process in which key stakeholders agree on a strategy for:

• Measuring performance at the physician level.
• Collecting and aggregating data in the least burdensome way.
• Reporting meaningful information to consumers, physicians, and other stakeholders in order to inform choices and improve outcomes.

The AQA's mission and goals focus 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 to enhance the quality, safety, and efficiency of care delivery.

The October 24, 2006, AQA meeting was convened to review the activities of the AQA's three workgroups:

• Performance measurement.
• Reporting.
• Data sharing and aggregation.

Participants also discussed the formation of the new Quality Alliance Steering Committee, comprised of the AQA and the Hospital Quality Alliance (HQA). Carolyn Clancy, Director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), chaired the meeting.

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