Three Wound Care Quality Performance Measures Are Now Public: Why It Matters

• Published in: Advances in skin & wound care Vol. 32; no. 12; pp. 538 - 539
• Main Authors: Fife, Caroline E, Nusgart, Marcia
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Copyright Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved 01-12-2019; Lippincott Williams & Wilkins Ovid Technologies
• Subjects: Female; Forecasting; Health care; Health Resources - economics; Humans; Insurance Coverage - economics; Male; Medical personnel; Nursing; Nursing care; Patient Participation - statistics & numerical data; Physicians; Quality Improvement; Quality of care; Quality standards; United States; Wound healing; Wounds and Injuries - diagnosis; Wounds and Injuries - economics; Wounds and Injuries - therapy; United States
• ISSN: 1527-7941; 1538-8654
• DOI: 10.1097/01.ASW.0000612640.38504.f3

Three wound care quality measures are now included on the CMS' Physician Compare website following a recent update that expanded the quality performance data available. It is anticipated that such will demonstrate an increasing appreciation by CMS of the importance of wound care management. The CMS launched Physician Compare several years ago to enable patients to make informed decisions when selecting healthcare providers by comparing quality data among physicians. The CMS believes that patients should select institutions and providers on the basis of quality and that the public nature of the data will incentivize clinicians to maximize their performance. In fact, Physician Compare may be one of the best reasons today to participate in quality reporting, because value-driven bonus payments currently are too low to provide incentive. Although there are many national quality measures available for reporting under the Merit-Based Incentive Payment Program (MIPS), the most commonly reported measures are very general. Because wound care is not even recognized as a subspecialty, these most certainly are not wound care specific.