ASCO Announces QOPI Health Plan Program To Promote Oncology Quality Improvement

Main Category: Cancer / Oncology
Article Date: 10 Dec 2007 - 4:00 PDT

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The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) is collaborating with leading health plans to recognize oncologists who are actively involved in assessing and improving the quality of care provided to patients with cancer.

Starting in December, participating health benefits companies and associations, including Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, UnitedHealthcare, WellPoint, Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Iowa and Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield of South Dakota, will be able to recognize physicians who participate in ASCO's Quality Oncology Practice Initiative (QOPI® ), an oncologist-led, practice-based quality improvement program.

"It's important for ASCO members to see that health plans across the country value their ongoing efforts to improve the care they deliver to their patients daily," said ASCO President Nancy Davidson, MD, director of the Breast Cancer Program at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. "The QOPI Health Plan Program is an important step in promoting oncologists' commitment to quality."

The QOPI Health Plan Program adds to the benefits of QOPI participation. "QOPI's primary programmatic goal is to provide a defined methodology, measures and system for quality improvement within the oncology practice. Through the QOPI program, ASCO offers its members a way to self-assess and continually improve," said Joseph Simone, MD, Chair of ASCO's QOPI Subcommittee. Practices that devote the time and resources to abstract medical records and submit de-identified data to the central QOPI database are rewarded with detailed reports that compare their own practice with the QOPI aggregate. These reports provide the basis for data-driven improvement efforts.

"QOPI requires practice commitment. The effort to participate in QOPI is significant, as is the benefit of the self-assessment process and the data," Dr. Simone said.

For this reason, ASCO has promoted the use of QOPI participation and data for multiple purposes since the program's open enrollment began in 2006, including for continuing medical education (CME) credit and the practice performance requirement for maintenance of certification by the American Board of Internal Medicine. The QOPI Health Plan Program adds value for QOPI participants by allowing recognition by health plans and seeks to reduce competing data collection programs initiated by plans.

Health plans nationwide have acknowledged QOPI's quality improvement potential and additional plans are expected to join the program in 2008. The health plans will recognize physicians that participate in the QOPI program through a method or initiative that each deems appropriate, such as including a special designation for QOPI participants in physician directories or providing financial incentives for participating.

"Blue Cross Blue Shield Association supports collaboration with medical specialty societies that have established meaningful quality measures, and our organization believes it is important to recognize physicians who are committed to quality improvement and who participate in the QOPI program," says Carole Redding Flamm, MD, MPH, Executive Medical Director for Blue Cross Blue Shield Association.

"The establishment of QOPI illustrates the important commitment that ASCO and its members have made to promote quality care for patients with cancer," said Sam Nussbaum, MD, executive vice president and chief medical officer of WellPoint. "Collaborations between health benefits companies and specialty societies on initiatives such as QOPI will encourage an environment that brings to patient care continuous scientific advancement in the practice of clinical oncology."

Ultimately, "engaging physician leadership is a crucial step in improving quality of care for patients," Dr. Simone said. "QOPI enables oncologists to set meaningful standards of quality cancer care, learn from one another, and build improvement resources. Health plan recognition of these activities will be an important force in QOPI's ongoing growth and development."

The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) is the world's leading professional organization representing physicians who care for people with cancer. With more than 25,000 members, ASCO is committed to improving cancer care through scientific meetings, educational programs and peer-reviewed journals.

http://www.asco.org