The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) today announced that the Delmarva Foundation for Medical Care (Delmarva), one of its quality improvement organizations, has entered into subcontracts with four regional collaboratives, as part of the Better Quality Information to Improve Care for Medicare Beneficiaries (BQI) Project.

 These regional collabortives will combine Medicare data with data from other insurers to produce information on the performance of health care providers for the benefit of Medicare beneficiaries.

The following regional collaboratives have signed subcontracts:  Indiana Health Information Exchange (IHIE), Massachusetts Health Quality Partners (MHQP), Minnesota Community Measurement (MNCM), and Wisconsin Collaborative for Healthcare Quality (WCHQ).

The results of the BQI Project will be used for two primary purposes: first, to provide performance information to physicians that will assist them in improving the quality of care they are delivering to Medicare beneficiaries; and second, to give physician performance information to Medicare beneficiaries in order to help them with physician selection.

 “This is an important advancement,” said CMS Acting Administrator Leslie V. Norwalk, Esq. “The BQI project will give Medicare beneficiaries a broad overview of provider performance resulting in better choices in meeting their health care needs.  The regional collaboratives, spurred by great leadership from physicians and others in the health care community, will also provide critical information to physicians and Medicare on the best practices for data collection, aggregation, and reporting.”  

The BQI Project is part of HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt’s Value-driven Health Care Initiative which is based on the following four cornerstones announced in President Bush’s Executive Order issued August, 2006:  interoperable health information technology (health IT);transparency of price information; transparency of quality information; and the use of incentives to promote high-quality and cost-efficient health care.  The Executive Order directs federal agencies, to the extent permitted by law, to share information with beneficiaries on the quality of services provided by doctors, hospitals, and other health care providers.  

The objective of the Initiative is to provide the public and providers with reliable and consistent measures of quality care.  The subcontracts announced today will allow the BQI project to apply these principles to the Medicare program.

The quality measures to be used in the BQI project are national consensus-based measures that have been adopted by AQA (an alliance of health care providers, health plans, senior groups, employers and unions that also played a role in the establishment of the subcontracting collaboratives).   For example, all people with Type 2 diabetes should have a simple lab test twice per year that shows the average amount of sugar in the blood over the last two to three months. Running this measure will show how many of a physician’s diabetic patients received this test and allow a physician to improve his or her performance if the test is not being conducted as indicated.        

The BQI project also aims to provide the most effective methods to aggregate Medicare claims data with claims data from other payers, including employers, health insurance plans and in some case Medicaid programs, in order to produce more accurate measures of the quality of services being provided by physicians to people with Medicare.  Combining public and private sector claims data will create a more comprehensive view of the quality of care provided and enable Medicare beneficiaries to make more informed health care decisions.

 “The local entities selected to participate in the BQI Project each bring a unique set of characteristics and experience that will prove beneficial in the implementation and ultimate success of the project,” Norwalk said.  “Critical to our success in improving health care quality is having a process where stakeholders can come together on strategy and in working together to improve information on physician performance.”

“I am grateful for the support from the Quality Alliance Steering Committee, which includes colleagues from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), the AQA, and the Hospital Quality Alliance as we work closely together to improve systems that deliver information and efficient care to patients and avoid unnecessary complications and costs,” said Barry M. Straube, MD, CMS Chief Medical Officer and Director of CMS Office of Clinical Standards and Quality.  “The AQA has been at the forefront of this initiative, continuing to lead efforts both on identifying quality measures and how to report that information in a meaningful way.”

CMS plans to announce two additional BQI subcontractors in the near future.  Additional information on each regional collaborative as well as the Secretary’s Value-driven Health Care Initiative is available at www.hhs.gov/transparency.