MEDICARE ANNOUNCES ADDITIONAL COLLABORATIVE IN ARIZONA
TO PARTICIPATE IN THE VALUE-DRIVEN HEALTH CARE INITIATIVE
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) today announced an Arizona collaborative as its newest participant in an effort to produce more accurate, comprehensive measures of the quality of services at the provider level.
Through the Better Quality Information to Improve Care for Medicare Beneficiaries (BQI) project, Arizona State University’s Center for Health Information and Research (CHIR) will combine their claims data or clinical information with that of Medicare to provide consistent measures of the quality of provider services.
“The measurement results from these collaboratives will ultimately provide information to Medicare beneficiaries about the quality of care physicians treating Medicare beneficiaries provide,” said CMS Acting Administrator Leslie V. Norwalk. “It will also provide valuable performance information to physicians who treat Medicare beneficiaries, making it a win-win effort for both providers and people with Medicare.”
Currently, the BQI project is being implemented in four regional collaboratives around the country. The Delmarva Foundation for Medical Care, one of CMS’s quality improvement organizations, has entered into subcontracts with each regional collaborative.
The CHIR joins other collaboratives announced earlier by CMS, which include: California Cooperative Health Care Reporting Initiative, Indiana Health Information Exchange, Massachusetts Health Quality Partners, Minnesota Community Measurement, and Wisconsin Collaborative for Healthcare Quality.
Additional information on each regional collaborative as well as the Secretary’s Value-driven Health Care Initiative is available at www.hhs.gov/transparency.