Three Weeks Left to Comment on New Dementia Measures

The American Academy of Neurology is encouraging neurologists, and the public, to offer comments on a new set of evidence-based quality measure for dementia. With a commitment to developing new measures for neurologic conditions to enhance quality of care and patient safety, the AAN wants as many people as possible to know that the comment period is open until December 15, 2010.

End-of-life issues related to dementia care, staging of dementia, and counseling related to safety issues and driving risks are among the issues addressed in the measurement, developed by a work group that included AAN member Germaine Odenheimer, MD, FAAN, who served as the Dementia Measure Development Work Group Co-Chair along Jerry C. Johnson, MD from the American Geriatrics Society.

Implementation of the dementia measures can be done in quality improvement programs and/or pay-for-reporting programs, such as the Physician Quality Reporting Initiative. The measures can also be used for meeting requirements set by the American Board of Medical Specialties for Maintenance of Certification requirements for Performance in Practice (PIP) Modules. The AAN describes PIP as a “a two-part quality improvement program designed for ‘clinically active’ physicians to evaluate whether they have shown practice improvement over the 10-year” maintenance of certification cycle.”

The Consortium for Performance Improvement (CPI), part of the American Medical Association, is also soliciting comments for the measurement set, stating that all comments are welcome and will be compiled and shared with the work group for consideration. Comments can be submitted via a CPI survey after viewing the measures on the CPI site.