Pharmacy Quality Alliance (PQA) and AllazoHealth have formed a formal research partnership to study and improve the medication adherence metrics used industry-wide.

PQA is the non-profit industry organization that develops and maintains medication use performance measures including Proportion of Days Covered (PDC) medication adherence metrics used by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Part D Drug Benefit, the Health Insurance Market Quality Rating System (QRS), URAC, and other industry and government organizations. PQA metrics are used to calculate the Star Ratings for Medicare Advantage and Commercial Exchange plans.

Another important objective of the partnership is to assess the clinical and financial impact of increasing patients’ medication adherence across a range of clinical settings.Allazo, on the other hand, has expertise in predicting patients’ adherence to medications, predicting how to best influence them to take their medication, and determining the impact of improving medication adherence on those patients’ future healthcare costs and clinical outcomes.

According to Woody Eisenberg, Senior Vice President for Performance Measurement & Strategic Alliances for PQA, “One objective of this research will be to identify ways in which the adherence metrics can be harmonized with other existing metrics used within accountable care models that can lead to measureable improvements in clinical outcomes.”

Another important objective of the research partnership is to assess the clinical and financial impact of increasing patients’ medication adherence across a range of clinical settings, including Accountable Care Organizations.