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.
Providing Criteria, Clinical Practice Guidelines and Quality Measures to Promote Consistently High-Quality Care for People with Rheumatic Diseases
Guidelines for the management of osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus nephritis and gout were published in Arthritis Care & Research in 2012. Work began on an update to the ACR’s 2011 juvenile idiopathic arthritis guidelines, as well as a new axial spondyloarthritis guideline project.
Classification criteria for polymyalgia rheumatica were published in Arthritis & Rheumatism in April 2012. The ACR also endorsed Sjögren's Syndrome classification criteria, which were published in April 2012 in AC&R. Progress was made on several ongoing criteria projects, including myositis classification, myositis response, scleroderma classification, and vasculitis classification; publication of the scleroderma classification criteria is anticipated in fall 2013.
The ACR published recommendations for use of RA disease activity measures in the clinical setting in May 2012 (AC&R) and for the use of musculoskeletal ultrasound in rheumatology practice in November 2012 (AC&R). The ACR also joined the ABIM Foundation’s Choosing Wisely campaign early in the year, and developed a rheumatology “Top Five Things” list that is published in the March 2013 issue of AC&R and available at www.rheumatology.org/fivethings.
Finally, new quality measures were developed for glucocorticoid-induced osteoporosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and gout. Testing of these measures in the clinical setting will be completed in 2013, with the goal of submitting them by the end of the year for national endorsement and use.
Continuing the Success of the Rheumatology Clinical Registry
Since its launch in June 2009, the Rheumatology Clinical Registry has served as a resource for over 810 users to enter patient data for quality improvement efforts and reporting to the CMS Physician Quality Reporting System and e-Prescribing Incentive Programs. Additional improvements to make the system more user-friendly and provide up-to-the-minute data on performance rates and measure compliance were implemented by the Committee on Registries and HIT. Consistent communication with users, training sessions and ‘how-to’ guides are just a few of the resources available to continue to establish a greater than 95 percent success rate for earned incentive payments.
Focusing on Health Information Technology
ACR Health Information Technology staff continue to promote the importance of health information technology and our members’ desires to learn more about it. From cultivating the HIT section of the ACR website, to conducting member surveys to gauge knowledge and utilization of HIT, to holding sessions at the annual meeting and the State-of-the-Art Clinical Symposium, the ACR looks to meet its members’ needs and provide guidance. Visit www.rheumatology.org/HIT for more information.
Building Quality Relationships
In 2012, 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.
The ACR also continued its collaborative work with the European League Against Rheumatism in the area of criteria development. In addition, the ACR convened a Drug Safety Summit in April 2012 to discuss ways the ACR and other interested organizations like the FDA and NIH can be more proactive in addressing issues related to drug safety for rheumatic disease patients.
Providing Opportunities to Discuss Quality and Informatics Issues at the ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting
Several quality-related sessions were featured at the ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting, including highlights of the new musculoskeletal ultrasound recommendations, Sjögren’s classification criteria, and recommendations for RA clinical disease activity measures in clinical practice. Other 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, the CMS PQRS and e-Prescribing programs, customization and utilization of EHRs, and a hands-on workshop that showed specific components of a rheumatology practice's EHR system.