GE Healthcare Customer Streamlines Participation in Physician Quality Reporting Initiative

CoxHealth reduces administrative burden of PQRI participation through use of GE’s certified registry for quality outcomes reporting

BARRINGTON, IL - GE Healthcare, a leading provider of healthcare information technology, announced today that CoxHealth (Springfield, MO) has successfully and rapidly prepared to participate in Medicare’s Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI), utilizing GE’s clinical data registry.

As previously announced by GE, the company’s Medical Quality Improvement Consortium (MQIC) quality data system was recently selected by the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) as a reporting registry for the 2008 PQRI program. This initiative streamlines quality reporting for Centricity® EMR and Centricity Practice Solution customers that submit for eligible financial incentives through the MQIC registry. A key objective of the MQIC registry is to simplify customer participation in pay for performance programs, and CoxHealth’s progress towards PQRI participation is an outstanding example of the advantages of this service.

“The GE Healthcare IT team pulled off quite a feat with the CMS PQRI reporting project,” said Sharon Duvall, MT(ASCP), CPHQ, Performance Improvement Facilitator, CoxHealth. “GE’s MQIC service has provided our organization with a viable avenue for participating in the PQRI program. We had declined to use the claims based method for data submission, due to the administrative complexity of this option and the significant time investment. Until GE’s MQIC registry certification, we just didn’t see the advantage of the PQRI program in terms of a return on investment. The government’s new HITECH Act for Healthcare has made it clear that quality outcomes measurement is increasingly important, and we believe we are prepared to take advantage of this focus, through our use of MQIC and Centricity EMR.”

CoxHealth, a three-hospital organization with more than 50 physician clinics and over 400 physicians, cites the expertise of the GE MQIC team as another key factor in the organization’s successful preparation for PQRI. Taylor Christopher, also a Performance Improvement Facilitator at CoxHealth, adds, “The MQIC team has been both talented and resourceful throughout this process. We have been participants in MQIC for over three years, and the reporting capabilities combined with GE’s technical support have allowed us to take our quality program to a whole new level. We look forward to this being deemed a successful demonstration project by CMS.”

“For over 40 years, we have demonstrated our commitment to enabling business performance while helping our customers optimize clinical care,” said James M. Corrigan, Vice President and General Manager, GE Healthcare IT. “The significant progress CoxHealth has made towards realizing a new revenue stream through participation in the CMS pay for performance program – which is ultimately aimed at improving patient care – was enabled by this commitment. We look forward to their successful participation in PQRI and the adoption of this method for participation by our many other MQIC customers.”

GE’s Centricity EMR and MQIC registry function provide a unique combination with the addition of PQRI reporting to collect and automate the reporting process as part of its standard patient documentation workflow. When physicians document encounters for qualified patients, the solution can capture PQRI measurement data with the option to automate CMS submission without additional administrative work.

PQRI is a voluntary program that provides financial incentives (1.5% of allowed charges) to physicians who successfully report on a specified set of quality measures for the services that they provide to patients under the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule. It was made permanent by the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act (MIPPA) legislation enacted in July 2008. In 2009, the incentive will increase to two percent.

About Centricity Electronic Medical Record:
Centricity EMR is an electronic medical record system that enables ambulatory care physicians and clinical staff to document patient encounters, streamline clinical workflow, and securely exchange clinical data with other providers, patients, and information systems.

Centricity EMR is used by thousands of physicians to manage millions of patient records, and is among the most widely used ambulatory care electronic medical records. Centricity EMR empowers healthcare providers to deliver a higher quality of care at lower costs.

Centricity EMR version 9.0 from GE Healthcare is a CCHIT Certified® product for Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology (CCHIT®) Ambulatory EHR 2007. The Commission’s product certification designates that a healthcare information technology product has been tested against a comprehensive set of functionality, interoperability and security criteria and has passed inspection of 100 percent of the criteria. The Certification Commission’s inspection process is based on real-life medical scenarios designed to test products rigorously against the clinical documentation needs of providers and the quality and safety needs of healthcare consumers and payers.

For more information, visit www.gehealthcare.com/emr

ABOUT GE HEALTHCARE:
GE Healthcare provides transformational medical technologies and services that are shaping a new age of patient care. Our expertise in medical imaging and information technologies, medical diagnostics, patient monitoring systems, performance improvement, drug discovery, and biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies is helping clinicians around the world re-imagine new ways to predict, diagnose, inform, treat, and monitor disease, so patients can live their lives to the fullest.

GE Healthcare’s broad range of products and services enable healthcare providers to better diagnose and treat cancer, heart disease, neurological diseases, and other conditions earlier. Our vision for the future is to enable a new "early health" model of care focused on earlier diagnosis, pre-symptomatic disease detection, and disease prevention. Headquartered in the United Kingdom, GE Healthcare is a $17 billion unit of General Electric Company (NYSE: GE). Worldwide, GE Healthcare employs more than 46,000 people committed to serving healthcare professionals and their patients in more than 100 countries. For more information about GE Healthcare, visit our website at www.gehealthcare.com.

ABOUT COX HEALTH
CoxHealth is a locally owned, not-for-profit, integrated health system providing care to 22 counties in southwest Missouri and northern Arkansas. With more than 9,000 employees, CoxHealth is the largest employer in the region, and in 2006 celebrated a Century of Caring for the Ozarks.
In 2009, for the fourth consecutive year, CoxHealth has been named as a Top 100 Integrated Health Network. In recent years, HCIA and Mercer Consulting have twice recognized CoxHealth as a Top 100 Hospital in the United States.
CoxHealth’s scope of care reaches far beyond the city limits with more than 50 physician clinics in Springfield and surrounding communities. Emergency medical services’ outreach includes ground and air ambulance services, Cox South’s Level II trauma center and urgent care facilities. CoxHealth is unique because it has implemented a strategy of integration, uniting various providers – from more than 400 physicians to behavioral health facilities and home health services – in one network of care that also includes an in-house managed care network and an insurance company.