| Pay for Performance Incentives to Improve the Quality of Hypertension Care
Who is the intervention targeting?
Providers who treat African Americans patients with hypertension (a risk factor for cardiovascular disease)
What intervention is being evaluated?
For each hypertensive patient, health care personnel receive $9.10 for any of the following:
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Appropriately prescribing guideline-recommended blood pressure medication
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Achieving blood pressure control
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Responding appropriately to a patient with uncontrolled blood pressure
All health care providers receive audit and feedback on their performance.
Where is this intervention taking place?
Health care personnel from 12 VA hospitals will participate in this study.
Partnering Organizations
Baylor College of Medicine
Houston Center for Quality of Care and Utilization Studies
Veterans Affairs Medical Centers
Why might this approach work?
The incentive was designed to change physician behavior without causing undesired, unintended consequences (i.e., gaming), setting unrealistic goals, or providing incentives that were too small. To address these concerns, the system will reward providers on an on going basis (every four months) based on a combination of process-of-care and patient outcome measures.
How will this intervention be evaluated?
A randomized control trial will be conducted to test the effectiveness of financial incentives to promote guideline-based hypertension care.
Principal Investigator:
Laura A. Petersen, MD, MPH
For More Information
Please Contact:
Kate L. Simpson
ksimpson@bcm.edu |
