Eve A. Kerr, MD, MPH

This study demonstrates the need for additional consensus surrounding how to translate guideline recommendations to administrative measures assessing imaging overuse for acute low back pain.

Expansion of episode of care measurement models to include presurgical care is an added opportunity to improve quality, value, and efficiency in healthcare delivery.

Commonly used measures of performance for assessing patient access do not reflect PCMH-encouraged strategies to improve access that may be preferentially used by part-time physicians.

This study shows how cardiovascular prevention would be much more efficient if risk were used in treatment decisions, but that currently it plays no role.

Midlevel providers were significantly less likely than physicians to change blood pressure (BP) treatment for complex diabetic patients presenting with elevated BP at a single visit.

Typical health plan data provide limited information for benchmarking physician performance using even a less stringent rule for attributing patient measures to physicians.

At least 50 quality events per physician are needed to reach a minimum level of reliability for most quality measures calculated from administrative data.

Additional training opportunities for primary care physicians and better use of ancillary services may be needed to further improve care for chronic pain patients.