The Ambulatory Care Quality Alliance (AQA) today announced six sites for a pilot project that will combine public and private data to measure and report on physician practices in a meaningful and transparent way for consumers and purchasers of health care. The pilot project will be supported with funding from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
"Consumers need and want more useful information to get better care at a lower cost," said Mark B. McClellan, M.D., Ph.D., the administrator of CMS. "Thanks to strong local leadership and a broad national partnership, this pilot project will bring together information from the private and public sectors to provide a clear picture of quality and cost for the ambulatory care providers in a region."
The pilot project will test approaches to aggregating data from various public and private programs, and publicly reporting data on physician performance. The pilot sites will not only measure care quality, but will identify those high quality providers who are able to deliver efficient care to patients, avoiding unnecessary complications and costs. The pilot project will also test the most effective methods to provide consumers with meaningful information that they can use to make choices about which physicians and physician groups will best meet their needs.
The organizations selected by AQA as initial pilot sites are the following:
- California Cooperative Healthcare Reporting Initiative
- Massachusetts Health Quality Partners
- Indiana Health Information Exchange
- Minnesota Community Measurement
- Phoenix Regional Healthcare Value Measurement Initiative
- Wisconsin Collaborative for Healthcare Quality
These organizations represent areas of the country where there is strong physician leadership, and where there is a rich history of collaboration on quality and data initiatives among multiple health plans and physician groups. The six coalitions have the necessary infrastructure and experience to support combining public and private data and to get the pilot sites up and running within a short time frame.
AQA is a broad based national coalition of more than 125 organizations that seeks to improve health care quality through a process in which key stakeholders agree on a strategy for measuring, reporting, and improving performance at the physician level. These 125 organizations represent physicians, consumers, employers, government, health insurance plans, and accrediting and quality organizations.
You can access the AHRQ press release using the link below.
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