Physician specialty societies and the development of physician performance measures

Efforts to increase accountability in the delivery of care include attempts to measure performance of individual doctors. Although physician specialty societies may be best positioned to define best practices, they have not yet played a major role in the development of measures. We examined specialty society involvement in measure development through interviews and review of Web sites. We found that a minority (35 percent) of societies were engaged in developing performance measures. Key barriers included member reluctance, lack of resources for development, and problems with data collection; facilitators included strong leadership and the perception of increasing pressure for accountability.