American College of Physicians and National Minority Quality Forum Partner to Improve Quality of Care for African Americans with Heart Failure

WASHINGTON, June 26, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The National Minority Quality Forum (NMQF) and the American College of Physicians (ACP) today announce that the CMS-approved ACP Genesis Qualified Clinical Data Registry (QCDR) now includes a performance measure for the treatment of heart failure in African Americans beginning with the 2017 Reporting Period for CMS' new Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS).

ACP's Genesis Registry is a multi-specialty registry intended for use by many types of physicians including internists, internal medicine subspecialists such as cardiologists, gastroenterologists, and endocrinologists, obstetrician-gynecologists, and family medicine physicians, as well as nurse practitioners and physician assistants, to foster performance improvement and improve outcomes in the care of patients.

The NMQF heart failure measure, Fixed-dose Combination of Hydralazine and Isosorbide Dinitrate Therapy for Self-Identified Black or African American Patients with Heart Failure and LVEF <40% on ACEI or ARB and Beta blocker Therapy©, creates significant opportunities for improvement in patient outcomes, and provides a unique opportunity for physicians who treat this patient cohort to fulfill the MIPS reporting requirements by improving the quality of care. Additionally, the measure helps to promote health equity in treatment of African American patients with heart failure.

NMQF developed this quality measure in 2015 in response to the well-documented potential for this FDA-approved therapy to improve outcomes of care, to prevent or delay initial hospitalizations for heart failure, and to significantly improve quality of life for this patient cohort.

It has been estimated that approximately 27 percent of African-American patients with heart failure in the United States are eligible to receive the fixed-dose combination, yet the therapy has been prescribed for less than 2 percent of these patients. Between 2007 and 2015, it has been estimated that about 75,000 African-American Medicare beneficiaries died prematurely because they did not receive this therapy.

ACP's Genesis Registry is currently the only CMS-approved QCDR that supports reporting of prescribing of the fixed-dose combination of isosorbide dinitrate and hydralazine as adjunctive therapy for treatment of heart failure in the specified patient population. There is no generic or therapeutic equivalent for this therapy, which was approved by FDA in 2005. The fixed-dose combination is still subject to patent and is currently available only as Bidil®.

About the National Minority Quality Forum
The National Minority Quality Forum (The Forum) is a Washington, DC-based not-for-profit, non-partisan, independent research and education organization founded in 1998 that is dedicated to improving the quality of healthcare that is available for and provided to all populations through evidence-based advocacy and quality improvement initiatives. The Forum develops user-friendly, ZIP-code-based, web-enabled indices that provide unique views of the prevalence and impact of health status indicators. Terms of Use, Disclosures and Copyright and Update information regarding the heart failure measure can be accessed here. Visit our website at http://www.nmqf.org. Follow us on Facebook (National Minority Quality Forum) and on Twitter.

About the American College of Physicians
The American College of Physicians is the largest medical specialty organization in the United States with members in more than 145 countries worldwide. ACP membership includes 148,000 internal medicine physicians (internists), related subspecialists, and medical students. Internal medicine physicians are specialists who apply scientific knowledge and clinical expertise to the diagnosis, treatment, and compassionate care of adults across the spectrum from health to complex illness. Follow ACP on Twitter and Facebook.

SOURCE National Minority Quality Forum

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http://www.nmqf.org