Physician Focused Quality Initiative
The Physician Focused Quality Initiative builds upon ongoing CMS strategies and programs in other health care settings in order to: (1) assess the quality of care for key illnesses and clinical conditions that affect many people with Medicare, (2) support clinicians in providing appropriate treatment of the conditions identified, (3) prevent health problems that are avoidable, and (4) investigate the concept of payment for performance.
The Physician Focused Quality Initiative includes the Doctor's Office Quality (DOQ) Project, the Doctor's Office Quality Information Technology (DOQ-IT) Project and several Demonstration Projects and Evaluation Reports.
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CMS TO HOLD VENDOR MEETING FOR VistA-OFFICE EHR PRODUCT
CMS has announced that it will hold a meeting with vendors interested in using the VistA-Office EHR product that CMS expects to make publicly available in July 2005 and to communicate what kind of enhancements are being made to the software. The meeting will take place on Wednesday, October 20 from 10:30 am to noon at the Renaissance Washington DC Hotel in Congressional Room A (located on the Ballroom level). Organizations interested in attending the meeting should contact: CAPT Cynthia Wark Acting Deputy Director, Information Systems Group Office of Clinical Standards and Quality Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Phone: 410-786-1041 cwark@cms.hhs.gov |
DOQ
The Doctors' Office Quality (DOQ) project is designed to develop and test a comprehensive, integrated approach to measuring the quality of care for chronic disease and preventive services in the doctors' offices. The goals of the DOQ project are:(1) to provide information for informed decision making, and (2) to support and stimulate the adoption of quality improvement strategies by practitioners in doctors' offices. CMS is working closely with key stakeholders such as nationally recognized physicians associations, consumer advocacy groups, philanthropic foundations, purchasers, and quality accreditation or quality assessment organizations to develop and test the Doctors' Office Quality (DOQ) measurement set. This includes and is not limited to the American Medical Association (AMA), National Committee on Quality Assurance (NCQA), National Quality Forum (NQF), Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJ) and others. The DOQ measurement set has three components: a clinical performance measurement set (PDF, 285 KB), Physician Practice Connections tool and a patient experience of care survey. For more information about DOQ.DOQ-IT and Physician Office Information Technology
CMS recognizes the potential for information technology to improve the quality, safety and efficiency of health care services provided to all Americans. Through the Doctors' Office Quality - Information Technology (DOQ-IT) project CMS is working to support the adoption and effective use of information technology by physicians' office to improve quality and safety for Medicare beneficiaries and all Americans. DOQ-IT seeks to accomplish this by promoting greater availability of high quality affordable health information technology, by providing assistance to physician offices in adopting and using such technology. For more information about DOQ-IT.Physician Office Information Technology Through the VistA Office - Electronic Health Record (EHR) project, CMS is working with the Veterans Health Affairs (VHA) to transfer health information technology to the private sector. CMS is funding and collaborating with VHA and other key federal agencies on the development of a VistA-Office EHR version of the VHA's hospital VistA system for use in clinics and physician offices. An overriding goal of VistA-Office EHR is to stimulate the broader adoption and effective use of EHRs by making a robust, flexible EHR product available in the public domain. This government collaboration is pursuing the goals listed above by:
- Support for disease management in areas such as hypertension, coronary artery disease, and diabetes. This will include reporting clinical data to a CMS-sponsored clinical data warehouse for quality improvement purposes
- Enhance the registration process to meet the needs of the general population
- Enhance the functionality for Obstetrics/Gynecology (OB/GYN) and Pediatrics care
- Interface with practice management and billing systems
- Improve installation procedures
VistA-Office EHR is expected to be available July 2005 to support the Quality Improvement Organization activities aimed at improving quality in physician offices. The system will be made publicly available for use by commercial EHR vendors or installed directly by healthcare providers. For more information read Fact Sheet (PDF 122K 09/15/04) and Questions and Answers (Qs & As) (PDF 127K 09/15/04) .
Demonstration Projects
CMS recognizes the importance of studying the likely impact of new methods of service delivery, coverage of new types of service, and new payment approaches on beneficiaries, providers, health plans, [and] states, and the Medicare Trust Funds. This includes the Physician Group Practice demonstration that tests a hybrid methodology for paying physician - driven organizations that combine Medicare fee-for-service payments with a bonus pool derived from savings achieved through improvements in the management of care and services. In addition, CMS has under development the Care Management Performance Demonstration authorized by section 649 of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003. In this demonstration, Medicare will establish a pay-for-performance 3-year pilot with physicians to promote the adoption and use of health information technology to improve quality and reduce avoidable hospitalizations for chronically ill patients. Several other demonstrations and programs are ongoing or under development.| Note: Some of the files on this page are available only in Adobe Acrobat - Portable Document Format (PDF). To view PDF files, you must have the Adobe Acrobat Reader (minimum version 5, version 6 suggested). You can check here to see if you have the Acrobat Reader installed on your computer. If you do not already have the Acrobat Reader installed, please go to Adobe's Acrobat download page now. |
Last Modified on Tuesday, October 12, 2004
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services