Bridges to Excellence Study Assesses Clinical and Financial Impact of Physician Qualit...( Reported in AJMC findings reveal ...),Health

Reported in AJMC, findings reveal only a handful of measures are effective

NEWTOWN, Conn., June 9 /PRNewswire/ -- To inform health care payers, purchasers, providers and policy makers about the importance of choosing the right metrics and collection methods for physician quality measurement efforts, Bridges to Excellence(TM) (BTE) conducted a review of the clinical and financial impact that results when physicians meet certain ambulatory care quality measures. The study, published in the June issue of The American Journal of Managed Care, analyzed the clinical and financial value of 60 commonly used and generally approved physician quality measures, from a payer-purchaser perspective.

Overall, the research concluded that only a handful of those measures have a significant clinical and financial impact. However, they are most routinely not found in claims data, thus putting to question the amount of resources that should be devoted to large claims data aggregation efforts as opposed to other data collection efforts for the purposes of assessing physician quality.

The study, Value of Ambulatory Care Quality Measures: A Payer-purchaser's Perspective, can be found online at: http://www.ajmc.com/files/articlefiles/AJMC_08jun_Brantes360to68.pdf.

The first part of the study consisted of designing and scoring the measures on an index that combined clinical and economic value, and the second part consisted of conducting detailed actuarial analyses of the subset of measures that had the highest index score.

The research and analysis was conducted and paper authored by Francois de Brantes, MS, MBA, CEO of Bridges to Excellence, Paula S. Wickland, FSA, Principal, Towers Perrin, and John P. Williams, MD, Principal, The WDE Group LLC.

About Bridges to Excellence Bridges to Excellence (BTE) is a non-profit coalition-based organization
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