Quality Quest believes that measuring and reporting physician and hospital performance is necessary to improve healthcare. Providing performance reports allows patients to find a doctor or hospital that will provide them with the best service and highest value of care.

Measuring and reporting performance is gaining acceptance in the medical community. For years, our system of evaluating and paying for care has been centered on the services physicians provide, not how well they do them or how much their patients improve. However, as healthcare reform gains momentum, a focused effort to measure and report provider performance is drawing a lot of support. Quality Quest has already begun to measure and publicly report different specific measures of physician performance.

For example, the Generic Prescribing report started in the third quarter of 2007. Generic drugs provide a lower-cost option to patients without sacrificing quality. We analyze claims data for prescriptions filled in seven central Illinois counties to find the percentage of prescriptions that are being filled with generic drugs. The results are broken down by provider specialty and show the generic prescribing rate at individual clinics. These reports are available on our website and are also provided to the clinics included in the report. From an initial rate of 65.1 percent, the regional generic prescribing rate is increasing as we work toward our target of 80 percent generic prescriptions by 2010.