For the fourth consecutive year, the UCLA Medical Group has been rated one of California's top-performing physician organizations by the Integrated Healthcare Association. Rankings are based on important health care quality measures, including preventive care, chronic care management, patient satisfaction and use of information technology to support safer care.
"There is an intense national effort to begin providing and acting on the kind of care measures in which the UCLA Medical Group already excels," said Dr. Thomas E. Sibert, president of the UCLA Faculty Practice and Medical Group and a UCLA associate vice chancellor. "We are proud to continue to do as well for our patients as we have, and we continue to commit to be at the vanguard of this kind of activity. UCLA has been justifiably proud of its capacity to treat the most complex illnesses. We are also proud to be among the most proficient in the more usual types of care. It is very rare to be able to claim both."
The best performers those who scored in the top 20 percent overall were selected from among the 230 physician groups participating in the association's Pay-for-Performance (P4P) program. UCLA was one of 46 California medical groups chosen and one of only 10 in the Los Angeles area. Integrated Healthcare's P4P program, the largest physician incentive program in the United States, enables physician groups to receive financial rewards from participating health plans based on their performance on quality measures.
According to the association, the top performing physician groups are leaders in the use of evidence-based health care processes and health information technology that result in better care for patients.
"What we do is to continuously improve on the care being provided to patients," said Dr. Samuel A. Skootsky, medical director of the UCLA Medical Group and Faculty Practice Group. "This is important for preventive and chronic care, as well as patient satisfaction. We work hard on behalf of our patients to achieve these results."
"Consumers and purchasers of health care in California expect their providers to continually improve the quality and affordability of care provided," said Don Crane, chief executive officer of the California Association of Physician Groups. "These top performing physician groups are outstanding examples of what organized physician groups can do as they implement policies and practices designed to produce better care and greater value for health care dollars."
The Integrated Healthcare Association is a not-for-profit statewide collaborative leadership group made up of California health plans, physician groups and health care systems, as well as academic, consumer, purchaser, pharmaceutical and technology representatives. The association promotes quality improvement, accountability and affordability for the benefit of all California consumers through special projects, policy innovation and education. For more information, visit www.iha.org.
The UCLA Medical Group is primarily composed of faculty physicians of the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. Organized in 1987, the medical group provides services to health plan members in most major HMOs and Medicare Advantage plans, as well as patients enrolled in PPOs, Medicare, state-sponsored and indemnity insurance plans and patients seen by referral. For more information, visit www.uclahealth.org or call 310-302-1300.
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