Medical groups offered rewards for IT use

06.02.2006
Cisco Systems Inc., Intel Corp. and Oracle Corp. last week said they plan to offer financial rewards to medical groups in Northern California that use IT to share data and improve patient care.

Rewards of up to US$150,000 per year will be available to members of a consortium of health care firms formed by the vendors and unveiled last week. The group, called the Silicon Valley Pay for Performance Consortium, includes the three founding IT vendors plus Camino Medical Group Inc., Kaiser Permanente, Palo Alto Medical Clinic, Sutter Medical Group Inc. and other large medical practices in Northern California.

All of the health care providers have agreed to encourage their physicians to use electronic medical record (EMR) technology and other IT clinical systems.

The pay-for-performance program rewards health care firms that use systematic processes and health information technology to improve the quality of care. To qualify for the rewards, the IT systems must meet standards unveiled last week by the Washington-based National Committee for Quality Assurance, a nonprofit group that accredits health care organizations.

Robert Pearl, executive director and CEO of The Permanente Medical Group Inc. in Oakland, said his medical group -- the largest in the U.S., with 6,000 physicians -- quickly agreed to participate in what he called the first pay-for-performance initiative that focuses on the use of IT.

"Advanced IT systems are the only way to provide the highest-quality care and the best service for patients," he added.