September 2005

NCQA program urges health information technology

The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) has unveiled for public comment revised the standards for its Physician Practice Connections (PPC) program, a two-year-old program that recognizes doctors who use clinical information and technology to improve patient care.

Several recent studies, including the Institute of Medicine’s Fostering Rapid Advances in Health, have shown that use of electronic information systems help improve healthcare quality, enhance patient safety, and reduce waste; yet such systems are rare in today’s healthcare system, found in only about 15 percent of physician practices.

The revamped standards align with MedPAC’s recent call for measures assessing the use of IT in physicians’ quality improvement efforts. More information about the program is available at www.ncqa.org/ppc. To see a list of PPC-Recognized practices in your area, visit recognition.ncqa.org.

The revised standards are available for public comment on NCQA’s Web site. Public comments will be accepted through October 11; final standards for the new version of PPC will be published in early 2006.

Source: National Committee for Quality Assurance, www.ncqa.org

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