Ambulatory Care Quality Alliance

Invitational Meeting

January 12, 2006

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The Ambulatory Care Quality Alliance (AQA) focuses on key areas that can help identify and address quality gaps, control skyrocketing cost trends, reduce confusion and burdens in the marketplace, and otherwise address the challenges of the current health care system.

The January 12, 2006, AQA meeting was convened to review the activities of AQA's three workgroups (on reporting, performance measurement, and data sharing and aggregation).

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Introduction

The aims of the Ambulatory Care Quality Alliance (AQA) are to improve health care quality and patient safety through a collaborative process in which key stakeholders:

• Agree on a common strategy for measuring performance at the physician level.
• Collect and aggregate data in the least burdensome way.
• Report meaningful information to consumers, physicians, and other stakeholders to inform choices and health outcomes.

AQA's mission and goals focus on key areas that can help identify and address quality gaps, control skyrocketing cost trends, reduce confusion and burdens in the marketplace, and otherwise address the challenges of the current health care system.

The timing of this stakeholder process has coincided with a growing interest in rewarding high-quality providers (through "pay for performance" or "p4p") and clinicians' burgeoning interest in adopting health information technology to enhance the quality, safety, and efficiency of care delivery.

The January 12, 2006, meeting of the Ambulatory Care Quality Alliance was convened to review the activities of AQA's three workgroups (on reporting, performance measurement, and data sharing and aggregation). Carolyn Clancy, Director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), chaired the meeting. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Mark McClellan delivered keynote remarks.

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