< Previous | Home | Next >

HRSA's Office of Performance Review (OPR) conducts site visits (performance reviews) to programs that receive funding from HRSA. As part of the site visit, a few performance measures are selected and used during the process. Some of the OPR measures are similar or the same as HAB's clinical performance measures. In those instances, the OPR measure is referenced in the upper right hand corner of the table. Additional information about the OPR site visit process and list of performance measures can be located at: http://www.hrsa.gov/performancereview/ .

For each performance measure an eligible population must be determined. Depending on the element of care being measured, certain patients should be excluded from the denominator in order to gather accurate data. For instance, in the HAART measure, patients seen for the first time in the last three (3) months of the measurement year will be excluded because a provider generally needs at least two (2) visits to evaluate the patient prior to prescribing HAART.

During the comment period many respondents requested specific outcome measures identified as a way to move their quality management programs along. By including the section "Outcome Measures for Consideration", HAB is providing direction on potential areas of focus.

For the purposes of these measures, an HIV care setting is one which receives Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Modernization Act of 2006 funding to provide HIV care. Each program receiving these funds are required to implement a quality management program to monitor the quality of care and address needs as appropriate.

For the purposes of these measures, a medical visit is considered any visit with a health care professional who is certified in their jurisdiction to prescribe ARV therapy.

Because lab tests do not have to coincide with a medical visit to a provider with prescribing privileges, a lab test can not be used as a surrogate marker for a medical visit.

No, a phone consultation can not be counted as a medical visit.

HAART stands for "highly active antiretroviral therapy" and refers to combination antiretroviral therapy that is of sufficient potency to achieve an undectable viral load in most all cases. Guidelines on ARV therapy can be found at http://www.aidsinfo.nih.gov/ .

It is understood that patients, for many reasons, may choose not to fill or take a prescribed treatment and it is not expected that programs will have attained 100% compliance on the measures. However, it is important for programs to capture the actual percentage of clients that are on a prescribed treatment regimen and identify opportunities for improvement. Often times when programs begin to track and trend data, they find unexpected levels of performance and new opportunities for improvement.

For HIV care, CD4+ percentage is routinely used to monitor childresn age 12 years and younger. A separate set of clinical performance measures will be developed for the pediatric population.