NACDS releases list of pharmacy quality projects
ALEXANDRIA, Va. The National Association of Chain Drug Stores today released the list of five demonstration projects that it helped select as a founding member of PQA Inc., a pharmacy quality alliance.
PQA was formed, “to improve health care quality and patient safety through a collaborative process in which the key stakeholders agree on a strategy for measuring performance at the pharmacy and pharmacist-levels; collecting data in the least burdensome way; and reporting meaningful information to consumers, pharmacists, employers, payers, and other healthcare decision-makers to help make informed choices, improve outcomes and stimulate the development of new payment models.”
The five projects that were chosen to help examine opportunities for measuring the quality of pharmacy performance are:
• Highmark in collaboration with CECity.com and the Rite Aid Corporation• Outcomes Pharmaceutical Health Care in collaboration with Kerr Drug, Inc and the University of North Carolina Eshelman School of Pharmacy• Pharmacy Society of Wisconsin, representing the Wisconsin Pharmacy Quality Collaborative, including the following payers, State of Wisconsin Dept of Health and Family Services, United Healthcare of Wisconsin, Unity Health Insurance and Group Health Cooperative of South Central Wisconsin• Purdue University School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences in collaboration with The Regenstrief Institute (an informatics and healthcare research organization), the Indiana Health Information Exchange, and the Indiana Pharmacists Alliance• University of Iowa and the Iowa Foundation for Medical Care in collaboration with Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield and Iowa Medicaid Enterprise
According to NACDS president and chief executive officer Steve Anderson, “NACDS is proud to be a founding member of PQA and these demonstration projects will provide significant data and help to shape best practices to advance the PQA objectives of providing meaningful information to pharmacists and pharmacy providers that will help improve the outcomes of the patients they serve. This is an important first step for pharmacy along a continuum of activities the alliance is working on this year.”