The three announced the formation of a consortium designed to encourage the use of electronic health records and other IT clinical systems. The Silicon Valley Pay for Performance Consortium includes Camino Medical Group Inc., Kaiser Permanente, Palo Alto Medical Clinic, Sutter Medical Group Inc. and other large medical practices in northern California. It includes medical groups that treat employees at Cisco, Intel and Oracle.

One of the first initiatives the consortium plans to launch is a 'pay for performance' program that rewards physicians who use systematic processes and health IT to improve quality of care. The program will use standards unveiled Tuesday by the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA), a nonprofit organization whose goal is to improve health care quality.

A physician backed by an electronic repository of information is much more effective and much less likely to make a mistake than one who isn't, NCQA President Margaret E. O'Kane said in a statement. For example, a doctor with good information support won't have to spend a lot of time tracking down medical histories to see which drug is best for a patient, according to O'Kane.

The IT vendors initially plan to reward participants based on measurements in three categories: evidence-based care, care management and patient education. The vendors targeted the participating medical groups because they treat many of their own employees in Northern California. The three plan to expand the consortium in places where they have large concentrations of workers.

Dean Didech, chief medical officer at San Jose Medical Group, in a statement lauded the IT vendors for investing in medical organizations in a 'meaningful way that will lead to improved patient care' instead of trying to control their health care costs.