Health reform and the quality assurance imperative

The administration's blueprint for healthcare reform contains a number of positive features, including a national healthcare information database, quality "report cards," and state-based patient complaint offices. Missing from the plan, however, is "an active quality monitoring system that holds health plans and providers publicly accountable for improved performance," says Andrew Webber, Executive Vice President of the American Medical Peer Review Association, the national association of Peer Review Organizations (PROs). His antidote includes the creation of an independent, state-based network to coordinate quality assurance activities; a program to monitor compliance with practice guidelines; and a quality foundation to measure, manage, improve, and oversee quality.