Five For Friday, April 2: Celebrating Success in Advancing Medication Use Quality

Welcome to the third edition of Five For Friday. As I reflect on my first two months as your CEO, I am pleased to share that my two primary assumptions about PQA have proven to be true. 

Read More

Q&A with PQA Board Chair Jerry Penso

PQA’s Board of Directors represents a diverse group of thought leaders and experts in healthcare, who understand how medication optimization improves patient outcomes and supports a value-based care system. Their expertise helps PQA advance the safe and appropriate use of medicines. This blog is one in a series profiling PQA's Board members. 

Read More

PQA Welcomes Seven New Members

PQA is a non-profit organization with 250 diverse members across healthcare. Our members include community and specialty pharmacy organizations, pharmacists and other healthcare providers, pharmacies, health plans, pharmacy benefit managers, life sciences, technology vendors, government agencies, health information technology partners, researchers, accrediting organizations and academia.

Read More

Five For Friday, March 19: Celebrating Success in Advancing Medication Use Quality

The nation’s leading health care organizations come together through PQA to improve medication access, adherence, safety and appropriate use. Our work is essential for high-quality, value-based care. 

Read More

Join Me at the 2021 PQA Annual Meeting

It’s my pleasure to personally invite you to join us at the 2021 PQA Annual Meeting, which will take place online, May 11-13. While we are all looking forward to the time when we can meet together face-to-face, we are excited to continue to host this important meeting virtually and provide you with high-quality educational programs and events which meet your needs.

Read More

Q&A with Ben Shirley on PQA's New Diabetes Measures

PQA endorsed two new diabetes-focused health plan performance measures in December 2020. More than 34 million Americans have diabetes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. These measures will help evaluate the quality of care for a disease that annually costs America $327 billion.

Read More

Five For Friday, March 5: Celebrating Success in Advancing Medication Use Quality

The nation’s leading health care organizations come together through PQA to improve medication access, adherence, safety and appropriate use. Our work is essential for high-quality, value-based care. 

Read More

PQA Publishes 2021 Measure Manual and Value Sets

PQA has published the 2021 PQA Measure Manual and Value Sets. The PQA Measure Manual includes the specifications for PQA measures for measurement year 2020. The manual provides guidelines and detailed specifications, which are needed to implement the measures accurately and appropriately.

PQA measures are use in a variety of federal, state, and regional quality programs, including the Medicare Part D Star Ratings, the Health Insurance Marketplace Quality Rating System, and the Medicaid Adult Core Set. In addition to retrospective analysis, the 2021 PQA Measure Manual and Value Sets may be used for ongoing monitoring and quality improvement in 2021.
 
PQA Value Sets, including National Drug Code (NDC) lists, are required to calculate PQA measures as specified. PQA updates the NDC lists twice annually and distributes the lists to licensees of the measures. A subscription for monthly NDC list updates is an available option for licensees to support ongoing monitoring and quality improvement initiatives.
 
Organizations must enter into a license agreement to obtain approval to use PQA measures. Learn more by reviewing the PQA Measure Use and License PolicyThere are significant licensing discounts for PQA members; and, as a benefit to PQA members, organizations may request a license for noncommercial use of the PQA Measure Manual for no fee.
For additional information about licensing or for questions about PQA measures, please visit the Measure Use and Licensing page of the PQA website.


Quality Forum Review: Best Practices to Support Tapering Patients on Long-Term Opioid Therapy

The PQA Quality Forum Webinar is a regular, recurring series on healthcare quality topics with a focus on medication use and medication services. It is a forum for educating and engaging with PQA members and quality-focused healthcare professionals.

PQA’s January 21, 2021, Quality Forum welcomed a panel of experts to discuss best practices to support tapering patients on long-term opioid therapy (LOT) for chronic non-cancer pain (CNCP) in out-patient settings. While the presenters noted more research is needed on the long-term benefits and side effects of opioid tapering, the results thus far have been promising.

Aisha Salman, MPH, a Program Officer at the National Academy of Medicine (NAM), began the conversation with an overview of the organization’s Action Collaborative on Countering the U.S. Opioid Epidemic.

Salman noted the severity of the opioid crisis in the U.S. Over 130 Americans die from an overdose every day, and 2.1 million people suffer from opioid use disorder. The opioid crisis cost $2.5 trillion between 2015 and 2018, and costs have been rapidly rising due to COVID-19.

In response, the NAM Action Collaborative seeks to apply a portfolio approach to address the epidemic, recognizing that no single policy will be enough. Established in 2018, the Action Collaborative is a public-private partnership with more than 60 participating members. The goal is facilitating a cohesive, systems response to the opioid crisis.

“We accomplish more when we work together,” Salman said. “It illustrates the necessity for a systems response to address a public health crisis like the opioid epidemic and underscores the important role that the Action Collaborative plays within this ecosystem.”

The Action Collaborative has four focus areas, each with a designated working group:











Read More

Addressing Health Access and Social Determinants of Health

As we celebrate Black History Month, I am reminded of one experience that had a profound impact on my view of health access and the pharmacist’s role in addressing medication use quality through team-based care.

Read More

PQA CEO Micah Cost: A Message to Our Members

Micah Cost, PharmD, MS, is PQA's CEO. Today begins his third week leading the organization. This blog features the message he shared with PQA members on February 1, his first day in charge. Follow Cost and PQA on Twitter for more insights on the organization's daily work to improve medication use quality.

Read More

Quality Forum Review: Pharmacist-conducted Immunization Assessment and Documentation

The PQA Quality Forum Webinar is a regular, recurring series on healthcare quality topics with a focus on medication use and medication services. It is a forum for educating and engaging with PQA members and quality-focused healthcare professionals.

Read More

PQA and CPF Bring Health Care Leaders Together to Prioritize Pharmacy Quality Measures for Development

Pharmacists and their pharmacy teams bring immense value to patients, and now more than ever, are a critical part of the health care delivery system. Quality measures are important tools to monitor and drive improvement, which also can quantify the impact pharmacy services have on patients’ health.

Read More

Reflections on 15 Years with PQA

As today marks my final day at PQA in the role of CEO, I have taken some time to reflect on the past 15 years, and the opportunity that was presented to me in 2006 to build and lead a multi-stakeholder organization, the Pharmacy Quality Alliance. We set out to build a sustainable model for advancing the safe and appropriate use of medications through the development of meaningful and actionable quality measures that all stakeholders would have an opportunity to shape through a consensus-based process.

Read More

PQA's 2021 Strategic Plan: Three Initiatives for a Unique Year

 
  See Laura Cranston's video presentation of the 2021 Strategic Plan.

PQA’s Strategic Plan for 2021 is focused on three, timely initiatives for medication use quality: the social determinants of health, innovative pathways for measure development, and immunization services.

Read More

Electronic Clinical Quality Measures: Considerations for Pharmacy Measures

Anna Legreid Dopp, Senior Director of Clinical Guidelines and Quality Improvement at ASHP, spoke at PQA’s Data and Interoperability Advisory Group (DIAG) meeting on June 22. She discussed Electronic Clinical Quality Measures (eCQMs) and how we can use them to start thinking about pharmacy measures. ASHP is the organization that represents pharmacists who serve as patient care providers in acute and ambulatory settings.

Read More

Data Integration in Medication Therapy Management

Amber Baybayan, a Senior Clinical Services Associate at OutcomesMTM, spoke at PQA’s Data and Interoperability Advisory Group (DIAG) meeting on June 22. She discussed data integration in medication therapy management.

Read More

Data Standards and Pharmacy Quality

Shelly Spiro, Executive Director at Pharmacy HIT Collaborative, spoke at PQA’s Data and Interoperability Advisory Group (DIAG) meeting on June 22. She discussed the importance of data standards for collecting and sharing information about pharmacist-provided patient care and services.

Read More

The Pharmacist eCare Plan: Improving Data Access and Workflow for High-Quality Care

Josh Howland, Vice President of Clinical Strategy at PioneerRX, provided a presentation on the Pharmacist eCare Plan (Plan) at PQA’s Data and Interoperability Advisory Group (DIAG) meeting on June 22.

Read More

CPESN: Building Networks for Enhanced Pharmacy Services

CPESN® USA is the Community Pharmacy Enhanced Services Network. It is a clinically integrated network of community pharmacies that coordinates patient care with broader care teams to provide medication optimization activities and enhanced services for high-risk patients. 

Read More