The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has added new quality measures to Physician Compare for group practices and accountable care organizations (ACOs) and, for the first time, individual healthcare professionals. 

These measures focus on the quality of care provided by Medicare physicians and other healthcare professionals, according to the agency. Hospital Compare includes information on more than 100 quality measures and over 4,000 hospitals. The website has been refreshed and updated to include new data and several new measures.

"Consumers want trustworthy, reliable, and understandable information about the quality of healthcare delivered by providers," said CMS Deputy Administrator and Chief Medical Officer Patrick Conway, MD, MSc. “Both Physician Compare and Hospital Compare show consumers that they have a choice. This large release of quality measures for hospitals and physicians empowers consumers with information to make more informed health care decisions, encourages healthcare professionals to strive for higher levels of quality and drives overall health system improvement."

The 2014 data released on Physician Compare include:

• Additional performance scores on preventive care, diabetes, cardiovascular care and patient safety by some group practices. CMS posted 2014 clinical quality of care measures for approximately 275 group practices who reported as part of Medicare’s quality reporting program, the Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS). These quality measures show how well a group practice provides certain types of care to people with Medicare.
• New performance scores on patients’ experiences with some group practices. CMS posted measures for approximately 290 group practices who reported patient experience measures through the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) for PQRS survey. The CAHPS for PQRS survey asks Medicare patients for feedback regarding their experiences getting care from their group practice.  
• First set of individual healthcare professional performance scores on preventive care, cardiovascular care and patient safety measures. CMS posted 2014 clinical quality of care measures for over 40,000 individual healthcare professionals who reported as part of PQRS.
• Updated performance scores for ACOs. CMS posted the 2014 clinical quality of care and patient experience measures for approximately 333 Shared Savings Program ACOs and 20 Pioneer ACOs.

The Physician Compare website was mandated by the Affordable Care Act. The website is intended to help consumers make informed choices about the healthcare they receive from Medicare physicians and other healthcare professionals; publicly reporting this updated and new quality information will help further that goal, according to CMS. The first quality measures were added to Physician Compare in February 2014. Since then, the number of individuals, groups and organizations reporting quality data has continued to increase.

The 2014 data released on Hospital Compare include:

• A new measure for the Inpatient Quality Reporting (IQR) program that shows whether a hospital uses safe surgery practices before administering anesthesia, before incision and closing, and prior to the patient leaving the operating room for inpatient surgical procedures.
• Additional data on certain healthcare-associated infections (HAIs). Information on the Central Line-Associated Bloodstream Infection (CLABSI) and Catheter-Associated Urinary Tract Infection (CAUTI) (NQF # 0139 and 0138) has been updated to include whether these HAIs occurred in patients not only in intensive care units, but also in medical, surgical and combined medical and surgical ward locations.

The goal of Hospital Compare is to inform patients about hospital quality and to encourage care improvements on the hospital level. Hospital Compare allows patients and family members to simultaneously compare multiple hospitals on their performance related to heart attack, heart failure, pneumonia, surgery and other conditions.