AMAP, JCAHO and NCQA Will Coordinate Measures
AMAP, JCAHO and NCQA Will Coordinate Measures
The country’s dominate health care accrediting organizations — the American Medical Accreditation Program (AMAP), the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO), and the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) will collaborate to design performance measurements, according to an agreement announced in late May.
The agreement establishes the Performance Measurement Coordinating Council (PMCC), a 15-member group that will coordinate the effort. The PMCC will begin work at its first meeting this summer, and will meet three to four times per year. Work groups addressing specific issues will meet in person and via conference call more frequently.
Formation of the PMCC dovetails with the recent recommendation from President Clinton’s Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in the Health Care Industry urging greater coordination in health care performance measurement efforts. The PMCC expects to work through the Forum for Health Care Quality Measurement and Reporting, a group being formed by Vice President Albert Gore, that will seek to incorporate existing private sector efforts.
The PMCC has developed a consensus statement, "Principles for Performance Measurement in Health Care," that outlines areas of purpose: the rationale behind performance measurement efforts; appropriate uses of performance data; specific areas on which measures should focus; guidelines for using performance data for comparative purposes; general requirements for cost effective measurement; and specific opportunities for collaboration.
The PMCC will also tackle issues such as standardization of risk adjustment, which is a key issue for measuring performance at the physician, facility and health plan levels.
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