NASHVILLE, TENN. – Jeffrey B. English, MD, of the MS Center of Atlanta, knows which quality measures physicians and their patients with multiple sclerosis think are important. After all, he and his colleagues have surveyed them about that very topic.
But he has little time to monitor these measures since he’s too busy with a more overwhelming task: keeping track of unrelated quality measures as required by the federal government.
“When they developed quality measures under the MACRA law, they were not thinking about MS people in general. They were very primary care based,” Dr. English said in an interview at the annual meeting of the Consortium of Multiple Sclerosis Centers.
In terms of MS, he said, “no one really knows what the correct outcome measures are.”
Dr. English knows more than most about quality measures preferred by neurologists and patients. At the annual CMSC meeting last year, he presented results from a survey of 11 physicians and 423 patients about the measures of care they consider most important. The patient survey asked about several measures recommended by the American Academy of Neurology plus other measures recommended by the physicians.
The two groups – physicians and patients – agreed on the top four measures: change observed via MRI, change observed via exam, quality of life, and fatigue. However, they disagreed on the ranking within the top four spots.
The least important measures for patients were exercise levels, depression, medication compliance, and relapses.