As the nation focuses on quality and cost of health care, AMA-convened PCPI celebrates milestone and looks to future

Celebrating its 10 year anniversary today at its meeting in the nation’s capital, the AMA-convened Physician Consortium for Performance Improvement (PCPI) highlighted its achievements to date and took a proactive look at future efforts to measure and improve the quality of patient care.

“Since its inception, the PCPI has focused on developing patient-focused clinical performance measures that physicians can use to improve patient care,” said AMA Board Chair-elect and PCPI Executive Committee member Ardis Hoven, M.D.  “Through the PCPI, physicians and other health care providers are at the forefront of developing evidence-based clinical measures of quality care.  The work and dedication of the last 10 years has paid dividends, with 270 measures across 42 clinical areas already created and broad recognition that the PCPI is a leader in the field of quality measure development.”

At this important milestone, the PCPI has set an ambitious course forward to ensure that quality measures created by and for the profession are used to improve both the quality and cost of care.  To help physicians implement the measures in their practice, the PCPI is working to incorporate measures into electronic health records and performance improvement programs.  Additionally, the PCPI continues to test its measures and the National Quality Forum has endorsed many PCPI measures.

“From the first measure set we created for diabetes to our current focus on measures that address appropriate use, including imaging and maternity care, the PCPI has challenged itself to develop the gold standard for scientific, evidence-based measures that can be broadly implemented to improve health care,” said PCPI Chairman Bernard Rosof, M.D. “We continue to grow, creating a governance structure and expanding membership to other health care professional organizations so that the entire health care community can contribute to and benefit from the work of the PCPI.”

Membership in the PCPI now stands at 170 organizations including: national medical specialty and state medical societies, health care professional organizations, the Council of Medical Specialty Societies, American Board of Medical Specialties and member-boards, experts in methodology and data collection, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and CMS.  Speakers at the PCPI meeting include AHRQ Director Carolyn Clancy, M.D. and Director of the Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform at the Brookings Institution Mark McClellan, M.D.