The American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) has launched a pilot with Emdeon, one of the largest claims clearinghouses in the country, to use Emdeon's aggregated claims and clinical data to drive quality improvement in family practices.
The AAFP Physician Metrics and Analytics pilot will last 12 months and will involve an undisclosed number of family doctors. The physicians will receive reports based on de-identified medical, pharmacy and lab data from participating providers.
Emdeon spokeswoman Amanda Woodhead told FierceHealthIT that many of Emdeon's provider contracts allow the clearinghouse to use de-identified data for particular purposes, such as quality improvement efforts. Some of the contracts, she said, require an opt-in by providers.
The reports for the AAFP pilot will include benchmarking studies that compare the participants to their peers, Woodhead said. She didn't know whether those comparisons would be made on a national or regional level. Some of the reports, she added, will look at disease-specific data.
The AAFP has been on a roll lately. Just a few days ago, it unveiled a partnership with Surescripts to create a new nationwide service for clinical data exchange among physicians. Notably, both that initiative and the new one with Emdeon can help family physicians build patient-centered medical homes and demonstrate value to payers--two key objectives in the age of healthcare reform.
To learn more:
- read the Emdeon press release