Change is coming in the way that physicians and hospitals are reimbursed for the care they provide. Too many health care dollars are being spent on care that isn’t proven to work best for many patients. In the future, health care providers will be rewarded differently.

Increasingly, the volume of health services – the number of different tests and procedures that physicians perform on a given patient – won’t be the only way physician payment is tallied.  Assessments of quality and value – whether the doctor performed the tests and procedures that were appropriate for managing the patient’s condition – will also matter. 

Thanks to the hard work and dedication of our local physicians, Healthy Memphis Common Table (HMCT), and the Memphis Medical Society, we have already begun efforts to increase the value of the care we provide by improving its quality. Providing accurate, complete data on the care in our community is at the heart of this effort, and no one is more important than local physicians and other providers as we reach for the next level. 

Armed with information about the performance of medical groups and clinics in our area, physicians can identify aspects of their practices that are ripe for quality improvement, evaluate the results of those efforts, and compare their performance to others. The goal isn’t to grade health care providers. It’s to compare the care that different practices provide so that patients are more informed and physicians know where to improve. Meanwhile, employers and consumers can use the same information to make choices and judgments about the quality of care they pay for and receive.

That’s why HMCT is working with physicians and hospitals, as well as patients and employers, to provide public reports on the quality of care in Memphis, now available at www.healthymemphis.org. Healthy Memphis Common Table leads one of 16 regions across the country participating in Aligning Forces for Quality, a national initiative of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to improve the quality of local health care.

This effort will also give physicians in our community a leg up on federal initiatives that use performance data to improve quality. We’ve also developed Project Better Care, a partnership between the medical societies and HMCT to address the challenges many primary care doctors face in effectively managing patients with chronic illness who are frequent users of the emergency room. 

We know that all measurement is not created equal. In the past, some systems that collected data on the quality of health care were flawed and inconsistent across the country. That’s why we must bring together everyone who gets, gives and pays for care to develop measurement and reporting processes that are fair and accurate. HMCT works to provide reports that are based on nationally recognized standards of care, which are transparent in methodology and produced in partnership with physicians from the beginning.

We know that measurement is only the first piece of the puzzle. After all, you don’t lose weight by stepping on scales; focused efforts toward improvement must follow. But HMCT’s reports offer information that both providers and patients can use to bring about change.

As we continue to make progress, we need health care providers to be part of our team, to use our data to identify areas for improvement, and to encourage patients to understand their responsibility to recognize and seek high-quality care, improve their health behaviors, and comply with treatment plans.

To see our public reports, learn more about quality improvement in Memphis, or become involved with other health care providers in our organization’s work, visit www.healthymemphis.org.

Presented in partnership by the Healthy Memphis Common Table and Memphis Medical News

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