FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
April 4, 2006
Contact: Richard Deutsch
Phone: 202-261-7573

• Health Information Exchange Initiatives Advance with Support from Quality Improvement Organizations (pdf)

3000 Physician Practices Sign Up To Improve Care Using Health Information Technology

Hands-on Support Available from Quality Improvement Organizations

Washington, D.C. – The American Health Quality Association (AHQA)—which represents the nation’s network of Quality Improvement Organizations (QIOs)—announced today that a new national program to help physicians use HIT to improve quality of care is well underway, with QIOs working intensively with practices in every state.

“Three thousand practices have already signed up for assistance from their local QIO in just the past eight months,” said AHQA Executive Vice President David Schulke in testimony submitted for the record today at a hearing of the Health Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee.

Schulke said QIOs will work with a total of 4000 primary care practices over the next two years. Four out of five practices QIOs will assist are those that need the most help—small and medium sized practices with no HIT systems in place. Nearly 700 of the 3000 practices now working on use of HIT with QIOs treat a significant number of underserved patients.

Under contract to Medicare, QIOs work with hospitals, doctors, nursing homes, home health agencies and health plans across the country to help prevent disease, promote patient safety, and improve the delivery of evidence-based care. QIOs are now promoting HIT in hospitals, physician office practices, and home health agencies, based on growing evidence that effective use of HIT can improve both quality and efficiency in health care.

National Program Draws on Lessons From Pilot
The new QIO program for physicians follows a 4-state pilot project that helped nearly 1000 practices in California, Utah, Arkansas and Massachusetts adopt HIT. The pilot was expanded into a national effort last August.

“What we learned from the pilot project is that providers and practitioners need help. Physicians need help from independent organizations that can be there for them throughout the process of adoption, implementation and effective use of HIT. They need support from systems change experts who can help ensure that care processes are redesigned to reflect best practices,” said Schulke. “This hands-on support is needed because literature and experience tell us that as many as half of all EHR implementations fail for one reason or another, often because practices did not go through the rigorous preparation and development necessary for success.”

QIO assistance involves examining readiness for HIT and then helping a physician practice develop a project plan and timeline, assess hardware and infrastructure needs, compare HIT systems, determine required functionality, redesign care processes, and report quality data.

QIOs are vendor-neutral, but do inform practices about vendors that offer the capacity to extract data and report on a specific quality performance measure set—– known as the Doctor’s Office Quality (DOQ) measures –developed in concert with the American Medical Association, the National Quality Forum and others.

QIO Assistance Will Help Physicians Prepare for Pay for Performance
Practices that report the DOQ measures will be able to receive customized reports from QIOs on the quality of their patient care. QIOs will work collaboratively with those practices to identify and implement strategies for changing workflow or care processes to improve on the performance measures.

“Using HIT to report data, measure quality, and undertake improvement will give participating physicians a major leg up on what is likely to be the future of health care reimbursement – pay-for-performance,” said Schulke. “Successful adoption and effective use of HIT improves the quality of care and therefore better positions health care providers for financial success under pay-for-performance.”

In closing, Schulke encouraged Congress to increase funding for the QIO program. “As HIT, pay-for-performance and health information exchange increasingly become vital tools for transforming quality, all providers will need performance improvement assistance from quality experts like QIOs,” he said. “The QIO program represents the largest coordinated federal investment in improving health care quality. Right now, that investment accounts for less than one tenth of one percent of overall Medicare spending.”

The American Health Quality Association is dedicated to improving the safety and effectiveness of health care. AHQA represents the national network of Quality Improvement Organizations (QIOs) that work with hospitals, medical practices, health plans, long-term care facilities, home health agencies, and employers to encourage the spread of best clinical practices and improve systems of care delivery.