Quality of Care

Practice improvement, pay-for-performance, outcome measurement and similar concepts have become part of the healthcare landscape. The quality movement will impact how physicians treat patients and how physicians are reimbursed for their services.

The quality movement seeks to improve patient outcomes by identifying and promoting best practices ranging from use of diagnostics, medications and procedures to physician practices and hospital operations. Determining best practices includes analyzing the effectiveness of products and services; finding flaws in care-delivery systems that lead to medical errors; and measuring how physicians treat their patients – doctor by doctor, patient by patient. Once best practices are determined, professional organizations can use this information to produce treatment guidelines, and various organizations may use the practices as the foundation for pay-for-performance programs, physician rankings and other initiatives. The ACR is defining best practices for treating rheumatic diseases, and not ceding that responsibility to others less knowledgeable. 

Establishing best practices for each rheumatic disease physicians treat will help provide the right care at the right time to each patient. Payor incentive programs, when implemented appropriately, can serve as a bar that physicians can strive to reach, to the benefit of patients. High-quality care should consistently result in more efficient care, saving costs to the health system and physician practices – over the long term. 

If quality is not pursued with adequate expert input, however, a one size-fits-all system of care could be created based on 1) an oversimplification of appropriate rheumatologic treatment, and 2) short-term cost-savings. Perverse incentive programs that adhere blindly to specific medical practices could punish physicians for providing appropriate care to some patients–an untenable conflict that would damage patients’ trust. That is why the ACR is actively leading the effort to define quality care for patients with rheumatic diseases. 

Broadly speaking, the ACR is working in the following areas:

  • Practice Guidelines
    Practice Guidelines are evidence-based recommendations that bring together the scientific evidence available at a certain point in time in a manner that outlines the options available.
  • Classification/Response Criteria
    Classification and response criteria form the foundation for clinical studies in rheumatology. Such criteria allow investigators conducting trials to consistently define a study population and to know when clinical improvement has occurred.
  • Quality Measures
    The ACR aims to develop tools and processes to help rheumatologist implement Quality measures in their practices as well as the measures themselves.
  • ACR Rheumatology Clinical Registry Now Available!
    The ACR has developed an online clinical data management tool to help rheumatologists and rheumatology health professionals comply with increased quality reporting requirements and improve the care they provide to patients. Click here to learn more about the RCR.
  • Government Affairs
    ACR’s Government Affairs Committee is working with both Congress, CMS and other organizations that have a vested interest in the quality movement, to monitor and respond to quality-related legislation.
  • Physician Quality Reporting Initiative
    A summary of the PQRI for ACR members and their practice management staff. This summary includes links to the appropriate CMS pages.
  • Policies and Procedures
    The ACR formed its Quality of Care Committee (QoC) in summer 2004 to oversee issues and projects primarily related to management guidelines, diagnostic and response criteria, and quality indicators. As the QoC organized its plan of work, it recognized the need for a comprehensive set of policies and procedures related to all ACR quality measures. Click here to learn more about the policies and procedures.
  • Rheumatology Training a pdf file
    The ACR Rheumatology Fellowship Core Curriculum Outline addresses quality of care in a way that no previous curriculum outline has done. The ACR wants to prepare rheumatology fellows for work in an environment where evaluating and reporting on quality of medical care is an integral part of their practices.
  • Resource Library
    This library contains tools more information about Quality. (FAQ, Glossary, Collaborative Activities, Quality-Related Links and Recommended Reading, Practice View a pdf file)

For More Information

For more information about any of the above programs, contact ACR staff: Amy Miller at or (404) 633-3777.