Patrick-Murray Administration Announces Appointments to State’s Health Care Quality Advisory Committee

BOSTON — The Patrick-Murray Administration today announced seven appointments to the Statewide Quality Advisory Committee which is charged with making recommendations for how health care providers, facilities and provider groups report publicly on health care quality. The committee will make its selection from existing state and national quality measures and provide recommendations on which ones Massachusetts should adopt as standard measures for health care quality.

“I am determined to reduce health care costs, and reforming the way care is delivered and paid for will help," said Governor Deval Patrick. “I look forward to the Committee's recommendations on how best to sustain our national leadership in health care reform."

“This is an important step in the next phase of health care reform in Massachusetts,” said Secretary of Health and Human Services Dr. JudyAnn Bigby. “By examining the standards by which health care quality will be uniformly measured, we can do a much better job of understanding the value of care we are purchasing.”

Formed under Section 54 of Chapter 288 of the Acts of 2010, the Advisory Committee is co-chaired by Commissioner Áron Boros at the Division of Health Care Finance and Policy (DHCFP) and Commissioner John Auerbach at the Department of Public Health (DPH).

As established under Chapter 288 of the Acts of 2010, the Advisory Committee must provide recommendations on a variety of quality measures including:

• Hospital process measures for heart attacks, congestive heart failure, pneumonia and surgical infection prevention
• The US Department of Health and Human Services’ Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems Survey (HCAHPS), which is a national, standardized survey of hospital patients.
• The Healthcare Effective Data and Information Set (HEDIS), a survey that is administered by the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA). This national survey is used by more than 90% of health care plans to measure performance on care and service.
• The Massachusetts Ambulatory Care Experiences Survey

The first meeting of the Health Care Quality Advisory Committee will be on Wednesday, January 25, 2012.

Committee Members

Co-Chairs

• Áron Boros, Commissioner
  Division of Health Care Finance and Policy
• John Auerbach, Commissioner
  Department of Public Health

Ex-Officio Members

• Dolores Mitchell, Executive Director
  Group Insurance Commission
• Dr. Julian Harris, Director
  Office of Medicaid (MassHealth)

Appointed Members

• Dianne Anderson, President and CEO
  Lawrence General Hospital
  (serving as a representative from an acute care hospital or hospital association)
• Jon Hurst, President
  Retailers Association of Massachusetts
  (serving as a representative from an employer association)
• Amy Whitcomb Slemmer, Executive Director
  Health Care for All Massachusetts
  (serving as a representative from a health care consumer group)
• Dr. James Feldman, MD
  Boston University Medical Center and Massachusetts Medical Society
  (serving as a representative from a provider group, medical association or provider association)
• Dr. Richard Lopez, MD, Chief Medical Officer
  Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates/Atrius Health
  (serving as a representative from a medical group)

For more information about the Committee, including meeting dates and minutes, visit the DHCFP website: www.mass.gov/dhcfp.

# # #