Clinician-level specialty measures are being developed by the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA), the American Medical Association-convened Physician Consortium for Performance Improvement® (PCPI), and others. The measures may be used for quality improvement efforts, maintenance of certification programs, or pay-for-performance initiatives. Once finalized and approved, the measures will be submitted for consensus review by the AQA and the National Quality Forum (NQF). The public comment period closes July 1 at 5 pm ET.
One important set of measures Palliative Care now in public comment period requires, in my estimation, more specific consideration of psychology's/psychologists' contributions. This comment period is an opportunity for those interested in seeing the palliative care environment become more inclusive of psychology.
I did a quick review and pasted below my initial/DRAFT comments about the set of Palliative Care measures (so far). You may add to and use (or not) in any way. Providing this public comment on these measures can be an effective way of underscoring the importance of including psychology as key members of the interdisciplinary team in palliative care (and elsewhere). You can access the Palliative Care measures at the NCQA web site. The direct link is: http://ncqa.org/tabid/745/Default.aspx. The public comment is still open so please feel free to provide any requests that you have for these measures there. That way all the comments/requests for that set will be in one location. At this site, you'll find the link to the Palliative Care measures (<http://ncqa.org/Portals/0/PublicComment/Clinician_Level/Palliative_Care_Measures.pdf>). Merla *****We applaud NCQA and PCPI for acknowledging and creating a bridge across disciplines and work together to offer quality care and services as envisioned in this suite of Measures.
The Palliative Care measures: #1: Advance Care Planning, #2: Care Plan Development, #3: Depression Screening, #5: Pain Intensity Quantified and #6: Plan of Care for Pain are measures that are relevant to psychologists.
Many psychologists (e.g., geropsychologists, health psychologists, behavioral psychologists, and others) work with patients carrying the diagnoses listed in Tables 1. Including psychologists’ related codes in the denominator codes of in Tables 1 namely the mental health and health and behavior procedure codes would advance the objectives of these measures. For the mental health procedure codes, the medical diagnoses would be coded secondary to the mental health diagnosis and the medical diagnosis would be primary with the health and behavior procedure codes.
The APA Guidelines for Guidelines for Psychological Practice with Older Adults (2003; <http://www.apa.org/practice/Guidelines_for_Psychological_Practice_with_Older_Adults.pdf>) specifically identifies medical comorbidity and end of life issues as being among the many problems of many older adults that psychologists who work with them will encounter. It goes on to say, “Likewise, because death and dying are age-related, psychologists who work with the older adult population may often find it useful to be well informed regarding legal concerns and professional ethics surrounding these matters (APA Working Group on Assisted Suicide and End-of-Life Decisions, 2000).”
The recommendations are consistent with the guidelines in general and specifically guidelines 17, 18 and 19 namely that, psychologists strive to understand issues pertaining to the provision of consultation services in assisting older adults; in working with older adults, psychologists are encouraged to understand the importance of interfacing with other disciplines, and to make referrals to other disciplines and/or to work with them in collaborative teams and across a range of sites, as appropriate and strive to understand the special ethical and/or legal issues entailed in providing services to older adults.
Other references e.g., APA Office on Aging work with
-- Dr. M. Arnold, PhD, RN Licensed Psychologist - Registered Nurse Psychological Services, Behavioral Health Counseling, Consultation and Education Focused on the Needs of Older Adults Western Suffolk/Eastern Nassau Counties, LI, NY Long Term Care Settings (631) 271-9863 "It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err." Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) “It is better to know the patient who has the disease than it is to know the disease which the patient has.” Hippocrates (460 BC - 377 BC)
