The ACR will Define and Promote the Standard of Quality of Care for People with Rheumatic Diseases and Provide Members the Tools Necessary to be Adaptive in an Increasingly Data-Driven Environment.
Through the work of the Committee on Quality Care and Committee on Registries and Health Information Technology, the ACR defines and promotes the standard of quality of care for people with rheumatic diseases and provides members the tools necessary to be adaptive in an increasingly data-driven environment.
Providing Criteria, Recommendations and Guidelines for the Treatment of People with Rheumatic Diseases
In addition to its project-specific efforts, the ACR Quality of Care Committee has focused in 2010 on laying significant groundwork for future success in the national quality arena. ACR policies and procedures related to criteria, guidelines and quality measures have been scrutinized to ensure that the College is in the mainstream or ahead of the curve in key areas and its products are, therefore, widely accepted. In addition, many ACR processes have been more standardized to ensure greater consistency and transparency. Products of these efforts include a January 2011 white paper—Defining Quality of Care in Rheumatology: The American College of Rheumatology White Paper on Quality Measurement—which should increase the successful review of quality measures that are appropriately derived from ACR practice guidelines. Other documents will be posted on the ACR website by late spring 2011.
New ACR recommendations for the management of glucocorticoid-induced osteoporosis were published in November. ACR juvenile idiopathic arthritis guidelines were also completed and will be published in April 2011.
The College solicited proposals and selected a principal investigator to begin development of gout guidelines in fall 2010, and work continued on lupus nephritis, RA and OA guideline projects, with these papers expected to be published in 2011.
In addition to completing the RA classification and RA remission projects, progress was made on several other criteria projects, including:
The Launch of a Committee on Registries and Health Information and Technology
In 2010, the ACR Board of Directors approved the establishment of the Committee on Registries and Health Information Technology to oversee the ACR's initiatives in those expanding areas. The committee will liaise with many ACR committees, working especially closely with the ACR Quality of Care Committee.
Under RHIT's direction, ACR has expanded the Rheumatology Clinical Registry. Since its launch in June 2009, the RCR has served as a resource for hundreds of ACR members to enter patient data for quality improvement efforts and reporting to the CMS Physician Quality Reporting Initiative. RHIT has overseen the refinement of the RCR rheumatoid arthritis data entry forms, to facilitate reporting and improve data quality, as well as development of a new RCR module for juvenile idiopathic arthritis.
To support ACR members' understanding and adoption of health information technology, RHIT has dramatically expanded information and resources available on the ACR website and in The Rheumatologist. These resources include detailed materials regarding EHR selection, e-prescribing, and the CMS EHR Incentive Program. Visit www.rheumatology.org/HIT to access these resources.
Building Quality Relationships
In 2010, the ACR continued to seek opportunities to strengthen its relationships with other professional medical specialty societies who have common goals related to evidence based medicine, quality measurement, quality improvement, registry development, health information technology and informatics. In addition, ACR members represented rheumatologists' interests at several national meetings throughout the year, including those sponsored by the National Quality Forum, the American Medical Association Physician Consortium for Performance Improvement, the Physicians' Electronic Health Record Coalition and the AQA Alliance.
In addition, the ACR continued its collaborative work with the European League Against Rheumatism in the area of criteria development. Joint RA classification criteria were published in September 2010. A joint RA remission criteria project was also completed. The new remission criteria were presented at the November ACR meeting and will be published in March 2011.
Providing Opportunities to Discuss Quality and Informatics Issues at the ACR/ARHP Annual Scientific Meeting
The ACR implemented several quality-related sessions for the ACR/ARHP Annual Scientific Meeting, which included highlights of the new RA classification criteria, RA remission criteria, GIOP guidelines and OA guidelines, as well as presentations focused on improving the quality of care delivery in the practice setting, national quality issues, the ACR Rheumatology Clinical Registry, and drug safety concerns. Sessions also highlighted meaningful use of EHRs, with specific focus on the CMS EHR Incentive Program.
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