Survey: Quality managers enthusiastic about P4P
Survey: Quality managers enthusiastic about P4P
A clear financial benefit is seen
A survey of hospital quality improvement directors and senior executives found that the vast majority were enthusiastic about a future pay-for-performance (P4P) initiative by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Many said that they viewed P4P as an opportunity to stimulate quality improvement. Ninety-three percent supported CMS in moving forward with a P4P program over the next couple of years.
P4P is likely to be good news for hospital quality professionals, since it strengthens the business case for the activities they have been undertaking, or hope to undertake, to improve quality, says Suzanne Felt-Lisk, a senior health researcher at the Washington, DC-based Mathematica Policy Research, which conducted the survey.
"They may be better able to secure or retain resources for quality improvement activities, due to top hospital administrators seeing a clear potential financial benefit from achieving high performance," says Felt-Lisk.
Many hospital executives said their main reason for participating in P4P was that they viewed the program as an opportunity for gaining financial benefit or stimulating quality improvement. About a third of hospital quality executives cited lack of resources as a major barrier to further improvement on quality measures.
P4P holds the potential for channeling more resources to quality improvement initiatives. However, at the same time, P4P will likely increase the pressure on the already stressful job of the quality director, in particular, says Felt-Lisk. "Top management will now have a clear measure of their success — did they 'win' under the P4P system?" she says.
It may be difficult for hospitals that are "behind the curve" on quality measurement to catch up to those who have been leaders all along, adds Felt-Lisk.
Selecting the right measures will be a critical element of future success in the P4P arena, says Felt-Lisk. "CMS has hired a contractor to help with measures selection, so the process is under way," she says. "In choosing measures, CMS will need to strike a balance between including a large number of measures to estimate hospital quality accurately in important clinical areas and overwhelming hospitals with new measures they have not been reporting."
[For more information, contact:
Suzanne Felt-Lisk, Mathematica Policy Research, 600 Maryland Ave. SW, Suite 550, Washington, DC 20024. Telephone: (202) 484-4519. Fax: (202) 863-1763. E-mail: [email protected].]
A survey of hospital quality improvement directors and senior executives found that the vast majority were enthusiastic about a future pay-for-performance (P4P) initiative by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.Subscribe Now for Access
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