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Physicians want to measure other docs on efficiency and performance

Physician Practice Advisor, June 15, 2005

Setting their sight on how to accurately measure physician efficiency and performance, 65 national medical specialty societies, eight medical associations, and two federal health representatives met at the American Medical Association (AMA) Physician Consortium for Performance Improvement in Rosemont, IL, last week.

The group, under the guide of the AMA, is forming a physician consortium with the mission of developing performance measures "by physicians, for physicians," as a way of tackling the trend of episode treatment groups (ETGs) measuring physicians on those two areas, according to a report by Modern Physician.

Some consortium attendees believed the data released by ETGs are the result of "dirty" methodology, according to the article, as they classify entire episodes of care and do not consider that many providers may be involved in an individual's care.

Presenter Thomas Lee, M.D., network president for Partners HealthCare System in Massachusetts and associate editor for the New England Journal of Medicine, cautioned the consortium physicians that trying to obstruct the development and implementation of efficiency measures would probably backfire. Instead, he recommended that the consortium help define the principles about how the measures would be used, the Modern Physician article said.

To read the Modern Physician article, click here.

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