AJRR Creates Web Portal for its Orthopaedic Quality Resource Center

The American Joint Replacement Registry (AJRR) has launched a Web portal for surgeons participating in the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS) program.

AJRR is one of 41 organizations in the United States designated as a Qualified Clinical Data Registry (QCDR) by CMS to provide expanded, comprehensive medical procedure outcome information, including patient safety data. PQRS requirements can be completed based on satisfactory participation with AJRR. The website can be accessed at www.medconcert.com/ajrr.

The American Joint Replacement Registry is a multi-stakeholder, independent, not-for-profit organization for data collection and quality improvement initiatives for total hip and knee replacements. AJRR’s goal is to optimize patient outcomes through collection of data on all primary and revision total joint replacement procedures. The mission of the registry is to enhance patient safety, improve quality of care, and reduce the cost of care. Established in 2009, the AJRR contains hip and knee procedures from all 50 states in more than 400 hospitals, and 2,000 surgeons. The registry is increasing at a rate of 2,500 procedures per week, officials claim. Today, the registry contains more than 150,000 procedures.

“We knew collaborating with CMS was important to our success when we started building our hip and knee registry,” said Daniel J. Berry, M.D., chair of the AJRR board of directors. “The designation allows physicians who send outcome data to an appropriate and accredited QCDR to seek CMS incentive payments and try to avoid penalties, and we’re excited about providing this resource to orthopedic surgeons who participate in our registry.”

As a QCDR, AJRR now has the opportunity to provide a new standard for eligible professionals (EPs) to satisfy PQRS requirements. AJRR partnered with CECity, a provider of cloud-based registry platforms for performance improvement, value-based payment, and professionalism, to create a custom PQRS reporting platform specifically for AJRR participants to submit data to CMS. The platform is designed to ensure that all participating EPs meet all requirements before submitting their PQRS reports to CMS for payment.

By participating in PQRS reporting through the AJRR Orthopaedic Quality Resource Center, EPs receive a mechanism by which report to CMS about Medicare patients, while being provided with timely, continuous performance monitors, performance gap analysis and patient outlier identification, access to patient care management tools, targeted education, and various resources used to close performance gaps, and registry benchmarks. Satisfactory participation may also earn EPs the 2014 PQRS incentive and possibly avoid the 2016 PQRS payment adjustment.

“We’ve seen a lot of growth over the last 12 months and this quality initiative adds even more to the value to orthopedic surgeons of participating in the AJRR,” Berry said. “Enhancing patient safety and improving quality of care is part of the AJRR mission and we look forward to more of our surgeons utilizing the new PQRS Web portal.”