American College of Cardiology and Health Care Incentives Improvement Institute Team Up to Improve Cardiovascular Care

WASHINGTON, Oct. 21 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- To identify and recognize quality in cardiovascular practices, the Health Care Incentives Improvement Institute (HCI3™), the umbrella organization for Bridges to Excellence (BTE), has worked with the American College of Cardiology (ACC) to develop a new BTE Cardiology Practice Recognition program (CPR) powered by the ACC. This practice-level recognition program will be available to all cardiovascular practices and leverages the work already done by the College to bolster the professionalism of its members.

"Providing quality care in the cardiovascular field is of the utmost importance to the ACC, and partnering with Bridges to Excellence will help to improve our performance goals," said Jack Lewin, M.D., Chief Executive Officer of the ACC. "By standardizing practices through consistent recognition for quality performance, this program will make patient safety and clinical procedure improvement a priority."

This program establishes goals and targets for cardiovascular specialists and their practices to achieve in their clinical processes, operational infrastructure, and professional development; provides a road map to guide performance improvement; and brings consistency to the market by standardizing the methodology for how cardiovascular practices are assessed and recognized.

"As the value-based approach to health care delivery continues to evolve, it is important to identify cardiovascular practices that demonstrate a commitment to the delivery of quality care while providing clear direction about opportunities for improvement for practices that may not," said Francois de Brantes, Executive Director for HCI3. "Health Plans have long struggled with the ability to adequately gauge the quality of cardiovascular practices because of the relatively low number of plan members in these practices. The BTE Cardiology Practice Recognition program powered by the ACC assesses practices' performance across all patients, reliably and in a statistically significant way."

Allan Korn, M.D., Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer for the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association (BCBSA), an association of the 39 independent Blue Cross and Blue Shield companies, commended the ACC and HCI3 for developing this practice-level Recognition program. "We'll include this in our Blue National Doctor and Hospital Finder, an online directory for members, as part of our commitment to providing more member-transparent information on physicians who are steadfast in improving quality, safety and affordability in care delivery."

All performance measures used in the program are approved by the ACC's Clinical Quality Committee to ensure that they are clinically relevant and translated into credible performance measures. Performance assessment and audit will be performed by IPRO, an objective, third-party performance assessor, and achievement of recognition status will be publicly reported. Criteria and scoring methodology associated with levels of recognition will be publicly available and individual practice data will be made available to practices for quality improvement action.

The American College of Cardiology

The American College of Cardiology is leading the way to optimal cardiovascular care and disease prevention. The College is a 39,000-member nonprofit medical society and bestows the credential Fellow of the American College of Cardiology upon physicians who meet its stringent qualifications. The College is a leader in the formulation of health policy, standards and guidelines, and is a staunch supporter of cardiovascular research. The ACC provides professional education and operates national registries for the measurement and improvement of quality care. More information about the association is available online at www.cardiosource.org.

Health Care Incentives Improvement Institute™, Inc.

The Health Care Incentives Improvement Institute, Inc. (HCI3) is a not-for-profit multi-stakeholder organization resulting from the merger of Bridges to Excellence, Inc. and PROMETHEUS Payment^®, Inc. The mission of the organization is to create significant improvements in the quality and affordability of health care by developing and implementing programs that recognize and reward physicians, hospitals and other health care providers that deliver safe, timely, effective, efficient, equitable and patient-centered care. Through its PROMETHEUS Payment model and Bridges to Excellence Recognitions, HCI3 offers a comprehensive package of solutions to employers, health plans and coalitions to improve the flawed incentives that currently permeate the U.S. health care system. For additional information visit: www.hci3.org.

SOURCE Health Care Incentives Improvement Institute, Inc. (HCI3)