PBGH Named a "Community Leader" in Value Purchasing by HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt
Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt is promoting a public-private purchaser partnership to move the market toward 1) adoption of health information technology, 2) transparency of quality, 3) transparency of cost, and 4) incentives to make quality improvements.  These four cornerstones are defined in the Presidential Executive Order to Promote Value Purchasing and will be incorporated by the federal government into all Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Department of Defense, Veterans Affairs, and federal employees benefit plan health care contracts.  Secretary Leavitt is asking private purchasers to "sign on" to promote Value-Driven Health Care as well, and has applauded PBGH's role as a "community leader" to this end. 

"We commonly use the word 'system' when we describe health care," Leavitt said to an audience of employers and health care stakeholders, "we don't actually have a health care system, and it is a critical part of the cost problem."  Private and state purchasers that committed to the four cornerstones are both large and small, and represent all industry sectors.  The ways in which purchasers can support the initiative include:

• Ask questions in health plan RFIs and RFPs that clarify the plan's position on provider measurement, reporting, and incentives.  See more information about a standard HealthPlan RFI that PBGH sponsors in California).  
• Partner with collaboratives that leverage purchasing power and resources to reinforce the transparency message among plans, providers, HIT vendors, and consumers. 
• Use effective communications and other tools to engage employees and their dependents in informed selection of providers and treatments. 
• Include performance metrics in contracts with health plans that enforce and reward the cornerstones.  

In conjunction with Secretary Leavitt's visit to California, PBGH presented at the American Health Information Committee on how purchasers can and are advancing these cornerstones.  Also, while in California Secretary Leavitt joined governor Arnold Schwarzenegger for the issuance of an Executive Order for California that maps to the Presidential Executive Order for Value Health Care. 

CCHRI Named One of Six National Pilots to Measure and Report Physician Performance
In a groundbreaking collaboration, the California Cooperative Healthcare Reporting Initiative, which is administered by PBGH, will partner with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, Blue Shield of California, Blue Cross of California, and United Health Care/PacifiCare to pool data, measure, and report the performance of most primary care physicians and many specialists in California.  Coined the BQI project (Better Quality information to improve care for Medicare Beneficiaries), this CCHRI pilot is the largest of six in the country.  Physicians and medical groups represented by the California Medical Association and the California Association of Physician Groups are among the supporters of the project.   

The BQI project uniquely pairs Medicare with commercial insurance data to enable caseloads of adequate size for statistical measurement.  Measures have been endorsed by the National Quality Forum, a multi-stakeholder association considered the "gold standard" for health care quality metrics.  First year results will inform quality improvement among the physicians by mid-year.  Future phases of the project will advance the science of consumers' use of the information for more informed physician selection.  This work leverages PBGH's research of the last few years in both physician measurement and consumer engagement.       

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