Measuring pharmacy quality

Objective: To describe methods for measuring health care quality and how these methods can be applied to the measurement of pharmacy quality and to describe ways of stimulating the use of quality improvement methods in pharmacy. Summary: The health care system is moving toward value-based purchasing of professional services, which is also known as value-driven health care. Value is often described as the balance between quality and costs, and thus, we can enhance value by improving quality while controlling costs. Although community pharmacies have not experienced the demand for evidence of quality and value, this is likely to change in the near future as the federal government and private purchasers expand their search for quality-related evidence to all sectors of health care. PQA, a pharmacy quality alliance, has been created to coordinate the efforts of numerous pharmacy stakeholders in developing measures of pharmacy quality and in educating pharmacists about quality improvement methods. In addition to educational strategies for stimulating quality improvement, the pharmacy sector is likely to experience regulatory changes that mandate quality improvement, public reports on the quality of individual pharmacies, and pay-for-performance systems that reward pharmacies for achieving higher levels of quality. Conclusion: All stakeholders in pharmacy (i.e., pharmacists, owners, managers, technicians, benefits managers) must become more aware of the movement toward value-driven health care and the ramifications for pharmacy practice. Community pharmacists will soon see an increased demand for evidence of quality and value as this sector is integrated within the broader framework for value-driven health care.