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Physician Focused Quality InitiativeThe 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.
DOQThe 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 TechnologyCMS 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:
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 ProjectsCMS 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.
Last Modified on Tuesday, October 12, 2004
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Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
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