Silicon Valley Pay-for-Performance Consortium Announces Significant Progress in Health Information Technology Systems Adoption

The Silicon Valley Pay-for-Performance Consortium, a collaborative effort started by Cisco® (NASDAQ: CSCO), Intel Corporation and Oracle along with several large California physician organizations (POs) to accelerate the use of technology for quality health care, today announced its first year end results. These results demonstrate impressive strides in the adoption and use of patient-centric systems and processes.

Through this consortium, seven POs representing 25 practice sites and more than 1,800 physicians accepted the invitation to join and continue to participate. As a part of consortium participation, these seven POs applied for and received National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) Physician Practice Connections (PPC) recognition, a nationally recognized set of quality of care standards.

After receiving NCQA PPC recognition, consortium members qualified to earn financial rewards for instituting new health information technology systems designed to improve the patient experience and outcomes. Utilizing nationally recognized quality of care standards helped ensure all seven POs were in alignment, and also helped them qualify for other Pay-for-Performance programs.

After one year, all seven organizations met NCQA's rigorous PPC standards, and reported making the following patient-centric improvements:

--  57 percent created patient scheduling and appointment reminder
    systems.
--  43 percent began to accommodate same day appointments and use data
    mining technologies for more advanced patient information management.
--  28 percent reported instituting electronic health records (EHRs),
    disease registries, clinician reminder systems, and guaranteed post-
    hospital follow-up systems. Additionally this same percentage reported
    increased use of e-prescribing, e-lab, and e-radiology results. Also, 28
    percent began to use electronic messaging, instituted an improved care
    management process, increased use of existing EHRs, and systems to better
    manage patient medication lists.
--  14 percent implemented better systems to track referrals, made
    progress towards implementing an EHR system, and also reported streamlining
    work flows.
    

"We are more than pleased to see the advancements these physician organizations have made to implement and enhance health information technology systems in order to improve the quality and safety of care," said Dr. Jeffrey Rideout, Cisco's vice president of healthcare, Internet Business Solutions Group and Cisco's Chief Medical Officer. "These impressive results in just over a year underscore the transformational impact of implementing patient-centric health information technology systems and are really a tribute those participating medical groups and IPAs who took on this program voluntarily. They truly are to be commended for turning a general goal of accelerated IT adoption to practical action."

The seven Bay Area based POs participating in the Silicon Valley Pay-for-Performance Consortium include Camino Medical Group, Kaiser Permanente, Palo Alto Medical Foundation, Stanford Hospital & Clinics, San Jose Medical Group, Santa Clara County Individual Practice Association (SCCIPA), and Santa Cruz Medical Foundation.

About the Silicon Valley Pay-for-Performance Consortium

In this last year, the Silicon Valley Pay-for-Performance Consortium has received important distinctions for itself and the recognized physicians. First, it was made part of the national Bridges to Excellence (BTE) program which recognizes and rewards health care providers that demonstrate the delivery of high quality patient-centered care. It is also worth noting that the 1800 physicians involved in the consortium doubled the current number of physicians recognized by NCQA and Bridges to Excellence in PPC nationally. Second, the successful certification also allowed the POs, with a single NCQA application, to meet the IT standards of the Integrated Healthcare Association (IHA)'s Pay-for-Performance program. This qualified them for further rewards from California health plans. IHA is one of the nation's largest and most well recognized pay for performance initiatives.

A total of $584,000 in financial rewards is being paid in the first year to the seven POs. These POs were the first set of medical groups approached by Cisco, Intel and Oracle because they provided health care to a significant number of the Bay Area based employee populations of these three companies. The objective was to not only highlight the benefits of HIT adoption, but also to move these physician organizations closer to their goal of delivering care that meets the expectations of these generally healthy and technology savvy employee groups.

Going forward, the Silicon Valley Pay-for-Performance Consortium will continue to support NCQA PPC improvement and rewards payout and is considering recruitment of additional employers and provider groups. It also is considering building the capability to communicate health data between payors and providers and will continue to report and track program impact.