Massachusetts Health Quality Partners today released their 4th report on physician group quality of care — this time measuring clinical quality and patient satisfaction in 150 different medical groups. The survey only measures primary, not specialty, care. Click here to go right to the reports.
Overall findings:
“…primary care physicians in Massachusetts continue to excel in providing preventive care and in helping patients manage chronic conditions, but that there are still significant opportunities to improve health outcomes and control unnecessary health care spending.
“Massachusetts physicians perform better than the national 50th percentile on 24 of 25 quality-of-care measures reported by MHQP this year, and above the national 90th percentile on 12 of 25 measures. For instance, on measures for managing chronic diseases like diabetes and adult asthma, Massachusetts physicians performed well above the 50th percentile national benchmark but below the 90th percentile.
“The MHQP report includes data on the appropriate use of antibiotics for the treatment of childhood colds and other upper respiratory infections and imaging studies such as X-rays, CT scans and MRIs for assessing acute low back pain in adults. Health experts agree that overuse or misuse of tests, procedures and medications can contribute to rising health care costs without improving quality of care, and, in some cases, at the expense of quality.”
Me? I go to Harvard Vanguard’s Kenmore Center. Been there since 1976. Click here for an example of how one medical group gets rated. Looks to me like they do pretty OK.
John McDonough
