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Quality-metric reporting seen as too costly and often waste of time

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A study in HealthAffairs suggests that lot of reporting on quality metrics by physicians is a costly waste of time.

The study found that  12.5 hours of physician and staff time per physician per week was spent on entering information into the medical record solely to report for quality measures from external entities.

“There is much to gain from quality measurement, but the current system is far from being efficient and contributes to negative physician attitudes toward quality measures,” the authors wrote.

Halee Fischer-Wright, M.D., president and CEO of the Medical Group Management Association, said of the  research:  “This study proves that the current top-down approach has failed. It serves no purpose to have over 3,000 competing measures of quality across government and private initiatives. Although standardization is critical, if measures don’t improve patient care, it’s an exercise in futility. As the largest contributor to the problem, the federal government needs to get out of the business of dictating patient care through wasteful mandates and create simplified systems to support medical practices in improving quality across the country.”

 

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