- Center on Health Equity and Access
- Clinical
- Health Care Cost
- Health Care Delivery
- Insurance
- Policy
- Technology
- Value-Based Care
Dr Matthew Pickering Discusses Development, Implementation of Quality Measures
The Pharmacy Quality Alliance (PQA) heavily relies on member organizations throughout the development and implementation of new quality measures, explained Matthew Pickering, PharmD, RPh, associate director of research and quality strategies at PQA.
The Pharmacy Quality Alliance (PQA) heavily relies on member organizations throughout the development and implementation of new quality measures, explained Matthew Pickering, PharmD, RPh, associate director of research and quality strategies at PQA.
Transcript
When the Pharmacy Quality Alliance is creating new measures, how does it work with its members?
PQA is a multistakeholder consensus-based entity and it was established in 2006 as a public-private partnership with CMS to develop quality measures to implement in the Medicare Part D benefit. And PQA has over 215 member organizations across a broad range of healthcare stakeholders. We actively engage our members throughout our measure development process. Including measurement generation.
Our development teams, our advisory groups, our technical expert panels consist of representatives across our broad member organizations. We rely heavily on their expertise and their insights. And it is very much instrumental for our measure development and implementation overall.
What is done to update or rotate out quality measures?
Measures endorsed under NQF, or the National Quality Forum, really have a review for an update every 3 years. And this update is intended to look at the performance of the measures to see if there is a gap that still exists. If the rates are still low or high depending on the measure specifications, then we may need to continue to implement that measure. Maybe there are guidelines that we need to change the eligible population or exclusions, such as certain age criteria, etc.
So those updates that's currently what goes on, and PQA does that, but in addition, we also update our national drug code lists, our NDCs. PQA obviously develops measures that are for medications and immunizations, and new medications come out quite frequently throughout the year. We need to update those drug code lists more frequently than every 3 years. So we do that every 6 months and we provide those new lists to the implementers who are actually using those measures.
The Importance of Examining and Preventing Atrial Fibrillation
August 29th 2023At this year’s American Society for Preventive Cardiology Congress on CVD Prevention, Emelia J. Benjamin, MD, ScM, delivered the Honorary Fellow Award Lecture, “The Imperative to Focus on the Prevention of Atrial Fibrillation,” as the recipient of this year’s Honorary Fellow of the American Society for Preventive Cardiology award.
Listen
Promoting Equity in Public Health: Policy, Investment, and Community Engagement Solutions
June 28th 2022On this episode of Managed Care Cast, we speak with Georges C. Benjamin, MD, executive director of the American Public Health Association, on the core takeaways of his keynote session at AHIP 2022 on public health policy and other solutions to promote equitable health and well-being.
Listen
New TROPiCS-02 Data Back Sacituzumab Govitecan for Older Patients With Breast Cancer
December 9th 2023This phase 3 study investigated sacituzumab govitecan, a Trop-2–directed antibody-drug conjugate, vs treatment of physician’s choice in pretreated patients who have endocrine-resistant hormone receptor–positive/HER2-negative breast cancer, the most common form of breast cancer.
Read More
POSITIVE Trial Update on Patients With Breast Cancer Attempting Pregnancy
December 8th 2023At last year’s San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, POSITIVE trial primary outcome data were presented on breast cancer–free interval, with women who paused endocrine therapy to attempt pregnancy having a similarly small rate of recurrence vs external controls from the SOFT and TEXT trials: 8.9% vs 9.2%.
Read More
