ALEXANDRIA, Va. – The Pharmacy Quality Alliance (PQA), through a majority vote of its members, has endorsed one new health plan performance measure, retired three health plan performance measures, and retired one nursing home performance measure.

The newly endorsed measure, Proportion of Days Covered: Composite (PDC-CMP), evaluates the composite percentage of individuals 18 years of age and older who met the proportion of days covered (PDC) threshold of 80% for diabetes medications, renin angiotensin system antagonists, and statins during the measurement year. This composite measure was developed in response to stakeholder support for a summary indicator of adherence focused on medications for treatment of common chronic conditions and is anticipated to improve continued usability of PDC measures in quality programs.

“Adherence measures, including the PQA PDC measures, remain an essential part of medication use quality with strong correlations to key outcomes and cost savings. As performance on individual PDC measures continues to improve, this new composite measure offers a natural evolution in the quality lifecycle,” said Lynn Pezzullo, RPh, PQA’s Senior Director, Quality Innovation.

As part of PQA’s systematic consensus-based measure maintenance process, measures may be identified for retirement consideration. PQA members voted in favor of retiring four measures due to their lack of use, and for some the rates were so low that they did not provide meaningful quality performance results. The four measures being retired include:

• Antipsychotic Use in Persons with Dementia: MDS (APD-MDS)
• Initial Opioid Prescribing at High Dosage (IOP-HD)
• Initial Opioid Prescribing for Long-Acting or Extended-Release Opioids (IOP-LA)
• Use of Opioids at High Dosage and from Multiple Providers in Persons without Cancer (OHDMP)

“Retirement is essential as a measure steward to maximize the value of our active measure portfolio,” said Rachel Digmann, PharmD, PQA’s Senior Director, Performance Measurement. “PQA remains committed to addressing the opioid crisis through measures focused on safety.”

Following the retirement of the three opioid measures noted above, PQA will have five opioid health plan measures, which are implemented in important quality programs.

PQA’s staff, Measure Update Panel and Quality Metrics Expert Panel recommended that PQA members consider the PDC-CMP measure for endorsement and the four measures for retirement. A public comment period was held prior to the vote.