BETHESDA, MD, June 30, 2004—The Leapfrog Group, with support from The Commonwealth Fund and The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, has developed the first public Web-based compendium of incentive and reward programs aimed at improving health care in both in-patient and out-patient settings. The Leapfrog Incentive and Reward Compendium is designed to help raise awareness among purchasers, health plans, and health care providers about innovative schemes that are already in place to improve the quality and affordability of health care.
The Leapfrog Incentive and Reward Compendium documents and categorizes both financial programs, such as those that reward providers with quality bonuses, and non-financial programs, such as those that reward providers with public recognition. Currently, the Leapfrog Compendium details 77 programs from around the country, including 17 that incorporate Leapfrog's performance measures. The majority of the programs included in the Compendium are initiated by health plans, purchasers, or purchasing coalitions and target hospitals, physicians, health plans, and consumers.
According to Suzanne Delbanco, chief executive officer of The Leapfrog Group, "Part of Leapfrog's mission is to promote high-value health care through incentives and rewards. A number of Leapfrog members and health plans have set the pace and shown a commitment to improve quality by launching groundbreaking incentive and reward programs. We hope this tool will act as a catalyst by creating greater public awareness and provide an educational avenue to disseminate lessons learned, best practices, and program comparisons."
Intended users of the Compendium include:
- Purchasers: The Compendium will help purchasers identify ways they or their insurance carriers can reward physicians, plans, and/or hospitals for improving the quality of patient care delivery processes. The Compendium will also highlight incentives for consumers to choose high quality and value providers;
- Health plans: The Compendium will enable the sharing of best practices for incentive and reward programs among plans and provide a venue for purchaser/plan collaboration; and,
- Providers: The Compendium will enable hospitals and physicians to learn about the various types of incentive and reward programs that are structured to provide increased payments, new patient volume, or other incentives and rewards for improving quality.
Leapfrog's Compendium is freely available on The Leapfrog Group Web site,
http://www.leapfroggroup.org/ircompendium.htm. Users are able to sort by location and program target and search the programs by using a built-in keyword search function. For instance, a search might focus on HEDIS® measures or Leapfrog's four quality and safety practices.
Leapfrog staff has performed comprehensive literature and Internet searches to gather the initial incentive and reward program information. Leapfrog encourages programs that use not only Leapfrog's quality and safety practices but also those programs that use other performance measures to submit their program information to the Compendium. The Compendium is designed to be a dynamic and living tool that with users' feedback will be continuously improved and refined. If organizations wish to submit new program information or update information already posted on the Web site, they are able to do so on-line.
Karen Davis, president of The Commonwealth Fund, added, "The Leapfrog Compendium is an important step forward in the movement to reward quality in the health care market. The ultimate goal is a high-performance health care system that ensures access to high-quality, affordable care for all Americans."
