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Research article:

Withdrawing Performance Indicators: Retrospective Analysis of General Practice Performance Under the UKs Quality and Outcomes Framework

Reference:

Kontopantelis, Evangelos; Springate, David; Reeves, David; Ashcroft, Darren; Valderas, Jose M; Doran, Tim(2014) Withdrawing Performance Indicators: Retrospective Analysis of General Practice Performance Under the UKs Quality and Outcomes Framework. British Medical Journal, doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.g330

Link to fulltext article
Abstract
Objectives: To investigate the effect of withdrawing incentives on recorded quality of care, in the context of the UK Quality and Outcomes Framework pay-for-performance scheme. Design: Retrospective longitudinal study. Setting: Data for 644 general practices, from 2004/5 to 2011/12, extracted from the Clinical Practice Research Datalink. Participants: All patients registered with any of the practices over the study period, 13,772,992 in total. Intervention: The removal of financial incentives for aspects of care for patients with asthma, coronary heart disease, diabetes, stroke and psychosis. Main outcome measures: Performance on eight clinical quality indicators withdrawn from a national incentive scheme: influenza immunisation (asthma) and lithium therapy monitoring (psychosis), removed in April 2006; blood pressure monitoring (coronary heart disease, diabetes, stroke), cholesterol level monitoring (coronary heart disease, diabetes) and blood glucose monitoring (diabetes), removed in April 2011. Multilevel mixed effects multiple linear regression models were used to quantify the effect of incentive withdrawal. Results: Mean levels of performance were generally stable after the removal of the incentives, both short- and long-term. For the two indicators removed in April 2006/7, levels in 2011/12 were very close to 2005/6 levels, although a small but statistically significant drop was estimated for influenza immunisation. For five of the six indicators withdrawn in from April 2011/12, there was no significant impact on performance in that year following removal and differences between predicted and observed scores were small. Performance on related outcome indicators retained in the scheme (e.g. blood pressure control) was generally unaffected. Conclusions: Following the removal of incentives, levels of performance across a range of clinical activities generally remained stable. This indicates that health benefits from incentive schemes can potentially be increased by periodically replacing existing indicators with new indicators relating to alternative aspects of care. However, most of the aspects of care we investigated remained indirectly incentivised and further work is required to assess the generalisability of the findings when incentives are fully withdrawn.
Author for correspondence
Evangelos Kontopantelis
Email for correspondence
e.kontopantelis@manchester.ac.uk

Code list: Micro-albuminuria_testing

15 codes in list

Code Coding system Description Entity type List name
467A.00 Read 24 hour urine protein output test Micro-albuminuria_testing
467E.00 Read Urine protein level test Micro-albuminuria_testing
467H.00 Read Random urine protein level test Micro-albuminuria_testing
46N3.00 Read Urine total protein test Micro-albuminuria_testing
46N4.00 Read Urine albumin test Micro-albuminuria_testing
46N5.00 Read 24 hour urine protein excretion test test Micro-albuminuria_testing
46N6.00 Read 24 hour urine albumin output test Micro-albuminuria_testing
46N7.00 Read Urine protein/creatinine index test Micro-albuminuria_testing
46TC.00 Read Urine albumin:creatinine ratio test Micro-albuminuria_testing
46TD.00 Read Urine microalbumin:creatinine ratio test Micro-albuminuria_testing
46W..00 Read Urine microalbumin test Micro-albuminuria_testing
46w0.00 Read Urine microalbumin positive test Micro-albuminuria_testing
46W0.00 Read Urine microalbumin positive test Micro-albuminuria_testing
46W1.00 Read Urine microalbumin negative test Micro-albuminuria_testing
46W2.00 Read Microalbumin excretion rate test Micro-albuminuria_testing

1 comment has been posted.

Jan. 27, 2014, 6:35 a.m. - David Springate

QOF indicator DM 13

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