National Quality Forum Endorses Ingenix-Developed Disease Management and Coordination of Care Performance Measures
Measures Identify Gaps in Care and Treatment Standards Among Physicians for Diabetes, Hypertension, Migraines, Cerebral Ischemia, and Pregnancy Management
EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. (September 15, 2010) –
Endorsement Support Efforts to Define Standards for Measuring Health Care Quality Improvements in U.S.
The National Quality Forum (NQF) has endorsed eight separate Ingenix-developed performance measures used by health care stakeholders that relate to disease management and coordination of care.
Measures endorsed by NQF are widely viewed as the most rigorous standards by which to measure health care quality, identify areas where patients are not receiving quality care, target opportunities where intervention is needed, improve outcomes and reduce health care costs.
The NQF-endorsed measures developed by Ingenix, a health care information, technology, and consulting company, address care related to diabetes (two measures), hypertension, migraine headaches, acute cerebral ischemic event, and pregnancy management (three measures). NQF endorsed the measures after a comprehensive review to determine their adherence to rigorous scientific and technical standards, as well as their ability to identify sufficient gaps in care and address national measurement priority areas.
Ingenix developed measures that address potential gaps in treatment and care protocols in these areas. For example, from a representative, de-identified sample of 14 million patients, Ingenix found that:
— nearly one-quarter of people with diabetes in the United States who take insulin do not self-monitor their blood glucose levels using recommended testing;
— more than one-third of pregnant women in the United States are not tested for HIV, and nearly a quarter are not tested for hepatitis B;
— more than 40 percent of patients in the United States who took medications for frequent migraine headaches (at least 4 migraines per month) did not take medications that could lessen the severity of the headaches or prevent their occurrence.
In the first example, self-monitoring of blood glucose (SMBG) allows patients with diabetes to evaluate their individual response to therapy and assess if blood glucose targets are being met. The Ingenix measure identifies insulin-treated patients who have evidence of self-monitoring blood glucose testing — according to guidelines established by the American Diabetes Association — by analyzing prescriptions for glucose testing strips.
The eight Ingenix-developed NQF-endorsed measures, in addition to 54 other NQF-endorsed measures developed by other organizations, are embedded in the Ingenix Symmetry EBM Connect(R) product that measures compliance with and identifies gaps in evidence-based standards of care.
In all, Ingenix, has developed more than 350 evidence-based measures for more than 35 clinical conditions with an external clinical expert panel.
Performance measures are used by payers, care providers, employers, governments and consumers to identify gaps in care quality and outcomes, strengthen disease management efforts, and enhance the overall quality of care to improve patient outcomes. For example, government entities serving 80 million people now use NQF-endorsed measures as the backbone of their systems for reporting and monitoring benchmarks of health care performance, and Medicare and many commercial health plans now pay more to care providers who achieve high levels of performance on measures selected from the NQF portfolio.
“Ingenix is committed to improving health care outcomes and contributing to the development of measurement standards to help build best practices in care management, and to being a strong voice in the national health care discussion. This NQF endorsement supports these goals,” said Shelby Solomon, Ingenix executive vice president, commercial and government health plan solutions.
About the National Quality Forum (NQF)
The National Quality Forum (NQF) is a non-profit organization that aims to improve the quality of healthcare for all Americans through fulfillment of a three-part mission:
— Setting national priorities and goals for performance improvement
— Endorsing national consensus standards for measuring and publicly reporting performance
— Promoting the attainment of national goals through education and outreach programs
NQF’s membership includes a wide variety of health care stakeholders, including consumer organizations, public and private purchasers, physicians, nurses, hospitals, accrediting and certifying bodies, supporting industries, and health care research and quality improvement organizations. NQF’s unique structure enables private- and public-sector stakeholders to work together to craft and implement solutions to drive continuous quality improvement in the American healthcare system.
About Ingenix Ingenix is a leading provider of health information, technology and consulting services. Organizations, institutions, businesses and government agencies that comprise the health care system depend on Ingenix solutions and insights to improve their performance.
Source: Ingenix
