HIT: CMS launches P4P and eRx projects

The government is launching an ambitious five-year project which will look at ways to improve healthcare quality using pay-for-performance techniques. The Medicare Health Care Quality Demonstration will fund local and regional projects which use incentives to promote quality. CMS issued a request for proposals on Monday.

CMS administrator Dr. Mark McClellan also said his agency will shortly be releasing a call for proposals for e-prescribing demonstration projects that would test emerging new standards in the field. The actual e-prescribing announcement is expected within the next few days. Selected pilots would be timed to coincide with the launch of Medicare Part D in January 2006. In other noteworthy news, McClellan said his agency is looking into ways to grant hospitals a "safe harbor" that would exempt them from federal laws which prevent them from giving physicians access to discounted or free software.

- see this press release from CMS on P4P
- see this story from Healthcare IT News on ePrescribing