NextGen, NYC Health Department Partner on Pay-for-Quality Project

Horsham, Pa.-based NextGen Healthcare Information Systems, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Quality Systems Inc., a provider of healthcare information systems and connectivity solutions, today announced its collaboration with clients that received assistance through the Primary Care Information Project (PCIP), a bureau of the NYC Health Department. In January 2009, PCIP launched Health eHearts, a pilot pay-for-quality program administered by the Fund for Public Health in New York that incentivizes practices using an electronic health record to help patients improve heart health.

Five NextGen Healthcare clients were selected to participate in the program, which provides incentives for achieving core quality health measures. Participating practices are eligible for greater incentives when achieving targets with patients that are more difficult to treat based on insurance status or an existing co-morbidity diagnosis. The potential quality incentive reward to each participating practice is capped at $100,000.

NextGen Healthcare clients Preferred Health Partners (PHP) and Staten Island Physician Practice both received the maximum incentive, with each practice demonstrating a 7X improvement over the capped performance measures and reward amount. The organizations implemented NextGen Ambulatory EHR in 2004 and 2006, respectively, and utilized the solution's integrated NextGen(R) Health Quality Measures Reporting Module to capture discrete data elements and review progress against the identified measures. Data capture was completely transparent and done without interfering in patient care, as the necessary discrete data points were documented during the course of the provider's existing workflow. Further, the module automatically calculated outcomes and generated clinical reports that offered feedback for the practices' ongoing performance tracking. NextGen Ambulatory EHR also provided the electronic submission capabilities needed to seamlessly submit data to the health department.