PQA Recognizes Six Medicare Plans for Excellence
Monday, June 2, 2014
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Posted by: Shannon Glaittli
Chinese Community Health Plan, Humana and Four
Kaiser Permanente Regions Achieve 5-Star Medication Use and Safety Ratings
Springfield, VA.
(May 29, 2014) -Six Medicare plans have been selected to receive the PQA 4
th Annual Quality Award. This award recognizes their achievement of a 5-star rating on the PQA measures of medication safety and appropriate use that are included in the CMS Star Rating Program. Awardees are also required
to achieve at least a 4.5-star summary plan rating. This year's award recipients are: Chinese Community Health Plan of California, Humana's Medicare plan in Illinois, and four Kaiser Permanente regions (California, Colorado, Hawaii and
the Mid-Atlantic region).
The Awards Recognition
Program was held May 29th in
conjunction with the Pharmacy Quality Alliance's Annual Meeting and Best
Practices Forum. This is the fourth year that PQA, as a consensus-based,
multi-stakeholder organization, has provided this unique recognition to top
health plans providing Medicare prescription services. PQA is pleased to
recognize these organizations as examples of excellence in appropriate and safe
medication use.
Laura Cranston, PQA's
Executive Director, emphasized the uniqueness of this award: "This award
is based solely on publicly available quality scores. The effective use
of medications is a top issue for all providers, and it is also extremely
important within the Medicare program. PQA seeks to hold these organizations up
as examples in the achievement of top medication management performance in the
care of their Medicare members. The high standards for excellence set
forth in the awards criteria means that these recipients are truly outstanding
in their medication management of patients and in their practices to ensure
optimal medication outcomes."
PQA is pleased that
pharmacy leaders from these six Medicare plans that have achieved a 5-star
rating on the PQA medication-based metrics will join together for a panel
discussion on Friday morning, May 30th to share best practices and insights
that have enabled them to achieve this top rating.
There are five PQA-endorsed
quality measures that are used within the CMS' Medicare Star Ratings program
and several used in the Display Ratings program. Details on these
measures are available at the PQA website: www.PQAalliance.org
PQA acknowledges the
support of Lilly USA for the fourth year in a row of the Quality Awards
Program. Lilly has been a member of PQA since its inception and provides
leadership and expertise on a number of PQA workgroups.
About PQA:
Established in 2006, PQA
represents pharmacy providers, pharmacy benefit managers, health plans,
academia, consumer advocates, community pharmacies, employers, pharmaceutical
research and manufacturing companies, and other stakeholders interested in
improving the quality of the medication-use system.
PQA's mission is to:
Improve the quality of
medication management and use across health care settings with the goal of
improving patients' health through a collaborative process to develop and
implement performance measures and recognize examples of exceptional pharmacy
quality.
PQA provides a
leadership role in identification and selection of metrics for evaluating the
quality of the medication-use system, provides education on quality
improvement, and connects pharmacists to healthcare improvement initiatives.
About Chinese
Community Health Plan (CCHP):
CCHP is part of an
integrated delivery system with its roots going back to 1899 when the first
Chinese residents in San Francisco were forced to settle in Chinatown. With the
help of Blue Shield of California, Chinese Community Health Plan formed in 1982
as an alternative HMO for patients who wanted to continue receiving care within
the Chinese health system. Today, CCHP has grown to over 15,000 members and is
involved in administration of an additional 17,000 members in Medi-Cal,
Medicare and commercial programs. For more information, please visit www.cchphmo.com.
About Humana:
Humana Inc.,
headquartered in Louisville, KY, is a leading health and well-being company
focused on making it easy for people to achieve their best health with clinical
excellence through coordinated care. The company's strategy integrates care
delivery, the member experience, and clinical and consumer insights to
encourage engagement, behavior change, proactive clinical outreach and wellness
for the millions of people Humana serves across the country. More
information regarding Humana is available on the company's web site at www.humana.com.
About Kaiser
Permanente:
Founded
in 1945, Kaiser Permanente's mission is to provide high-quality, affordable
health care services and to improve the health of its members and the
communities it serves. Kaiser Permanente currently serves approximately 9.3
million members in eight states and the District of Columbia. Care for members
and patients is focused on their total health and guided by their personal
physicians, specialists and team of caregivers. The organization's caring
medical teams are empowered and supported by industry-leading technology
advances and tools for health promotion, disease prevention, state-of-the-art
care delivery and world-class chronic disease management. Kaiser Permanente is
dedicated to care innovations, clinical research, health education and the
support of community health. For more information, go to:kp.org/share.
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