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Report: Still Room for Improvement for Massachusetts DoctorsBy Monique Coppola
Commonwealth News Service
09:31AM / Friday, April 03, 2009
BOSTON — Patients will now be able to examine doctors in Massachusetts.
Beginning yesterday, health-care consumers in Massachusetts can access new information regarding how well 150 medical groups performed relative to national standards for providing medical care. The information can be found in a report issued by Massachusetts Health Quality Partners.
MHQP Executive Director Barbra Rabson says the report shows statewide improvement.
"Massachusetts physicians still perform above the national average on most of the measures. We know that physician leaders take these reports seriously and use them to target internal improvement efforts."
One physician who has focused on high quality, according to the report, is Dr. Gregory Young, president and CEO of Pediatric Physicians' Organization at Children's Hospital in Boston. His group has been able to utilize data from the studies to improve the quality of patient care, he says.
"We collaborated with the full-time licensed clinical social worker in our office to work with kids receiving medications and we changed several of our standard office practices to ensure the scheduling of follow-up visits."
Marilyn Kramer, executive director Partnership for Healthcare Excellence, says the study is a great tool for physicians, as well as consumers.
"It's important for consumers to learn about their physicians as well as their hospitals and this kind of data gives them great insight."
Despite the overall high level of quality among primary-care physicians, MHQP has consistently found variation in performance among medical groups. The results of the study are available at www.mhqp.org. |
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