ACP calls for more relevant performance measures for colorectal cancer screening

In a new position paper, published in Annals of Internal Medicine on Oct. 21, the College stresses that appropriate measures for colorectal cancer screening are essential to avoid unnecessary harms to patients, limit physician burden, and protect reputations and reimbursements.

The paper, “Quality Indicators for Screening and Surveillance of Colorectal Cancer in Adults,” outlines the current performance measures for colorectal cancer screening and surveillance, identifying those that are methodologically sound and evidence-based to inform physicians and policymakers about how to use them for assessing quality of care.

ACP supports one out of the five current measures relevant to internal medicine, “Facility 7-Day Risk-Standardized Hospital Visit Rate after Outpatient Colonoscopy” from CMS's Measures Inventory Tool, which measures the rate of risk-standardized, all-cause, unplanned hospital visits within seven days of an outpatient colonoscopy among Medicare fee-for-service patients ages 65 years and older. The other four performance measures reviewed were not aligned with current scientific evidence, promoted unnecessary screening in inappropriate age groups, or were not reliable at the levels at which they were applied.