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SJMMG Pediatrician Named to National Quality Improvement Committee St. John’s Mercy Medical Group (SJMMG) pediatrician and newly appointed Pediatric Medical Director, Sandeep Rohatgi, M.D., has joined the Ad Hoc Committee on Quality for the American Academy of Pediatrics’ (AAP’s) Steering Committee on Quality Improvement and Measurement (SCOQIM). This is significant because it means SJMMG will have a voice in national quality measures developed for pediatric patients. Payers, plans, consumers and physicians are utilizing quality measurement in various forms to improve the overall quality of care and contain growing health care costs. The field of pediatric measurement has been growing, as well, as large national organizations—including the National Quality Forum (NQF), the American Medical Association’s (AMA’s) Physician Consortium for Performance Improvement (Consortium), and the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO)—now are beginning to consider pediatric topics. For example, the NQF’s initial hospital performance measure set included three pediatric measures. Additionally, several child quality measures at the health plan level are included in the National Committee on Quality Assurance’s (NCQA’s) HEDIS measurement set. The SCOQIM has monitored these developments and is participating in activities around quality measurement, improvement and incentive payment plans, recognizing that pediatric representatives should be included in these efforts at national, state and local levels. The SCOQIM believes it is essential for organizations focused on pediatric care be actively involved to ensure that measures and standards appropriately reflect quality of care for children and adolescents and the unique needs of this population. SCOQIM members serve as AAP liaisons to the AMA Consortium, the NCQA Practicing Physician Advisory Committee, and the NQF. The SCOQIM also will provide input on the developing Alliance for Pediatric Quality (APQ), a consortium of pediatric organizations—including the AAP—dedicated to providing consensus on pediatric quality measurement. Most important, the SCOQIM is finalizing a policy statement that provides a set of principles for quality measurement to guide the AAP in determining how it should approach this field. The principles address issues of improvement and accountability and present criteria on which measures for each activity should be based. The Ad Hoc Committee on which Dr. Rohatgi will serve will build on current
activities of the SCOQIM. Specifically, it will:
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Sisters of Mercy Health System
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