Help Shape How NCQA Evaluates Ambulatory Care Clinics

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) invites the public’s input on proposed standards for a new program to evaluate ambulatory care clinics that provide patient-centered care and work to reduce fragmentation by forming virtual neighborhoods with medical homes. A medical home is a model of primary care that combines teamwork, care coordination and information technology to improve care, improve patients’ experience of care and reduce costs. The new NCQA program, tentatively named Patient-Centered Connected Care, will assess sites that deliver care in a nontraditional practice. Eligible entities include telemedicine providers, worksite clinics, urgent care clinics and retail clinics. The program will evaluate and encourage the application of patient-centered principles, such as engaging patients and families in decision making, promoting self-care, providing culturally and linguistically appropriate care and committing to continuous quality improvement. “As the use of telemedicine and ambulatory care clinics providing convenient, episodic care grows, so does the need to assimilate them into the вЂ˜medical home neighborhood’ and to ensure that information about care they deliver is shared with the medical home,” said Patricia Barrett, NCQA Vice President of Product Development. “Public comment will help NCQA craft a program that encourages communication and supports quality.” Public comment is a valuable step in NCQA’s product development process; it helps guarantee that proposed standards are achievable and that they drive improvement and reflect the needs of diverse stakeholders. NCQA uses input from public comment to refine and determine scoring criteria for its programs. The public comment period begins at 9 a.m. ET on July 7 and ends at 5 p.m. ET on August 6. Visit .ncqa.org/ncqapubliccomments to participate. About NCQA NCQA is a private, non-profit organization dedicated to improving health care quality. NCQA accredits and certifies a wide range of health care organizations. It also recognizes clinicians and practices in key areas of performance. NCQA’s Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDISВ®) is the most widely used performance measurement tool in health care. NCQA’s Web site (ncqa.org) contains information to help consumers, employers and others make more informed health care choices. HEDISВ® is a registered trademark of the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA).