Quality measures

The individual physicians and groups selected for Priority Health Quality Awards have achieved the highest overall scores for implementing a wide range of measures that include preventive care, control of chronic diseases and patient satisfaction. The patient-satisfaction measures rate the practices' success at giving preventive health advice and returning telephone calls in a timely way.

The way to achieve across-the-board improvement in quality is to improve operations throughout a practice. Here are some key examples of how quality measures impact costs and quality of care.

Preventive measures

Breast cancer screening

• Priority Health members: 80%
• National average: 69%

Routine screenings find cancer early, save lives and an average of $20,000 per patient with an early diagnosis.

Cervical cancer screening

• Priority Health members: 94%
• National average: 80%

By finding cancer early, routine screenings save lives and an average of $26,000 per patient.

Disease management

Asthma control

• Priority Health members: 96%
• National average: 93%

Good asthma treatment reduces emergency room visits by an average of 17% and inpatient admissions by an average of 9%.

Diabetes - Blood sugar control

• Priority Health members: 93%
• National average: 87%

Better blood sugar control saves an average of $1,180 per diabetes patient.

Diabetes - Cholesterol (LDL) control

• Priority Health members: 55%
• National average: 43%

Low LDL levels cuts the risk of heart attack or premature death in half.