(NCQA: Washington, DC) -- The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) has released its latest edition of Quality Compass, one of the nation's leading databases of comparable information on clinical performance and patient experience for 415 commercial health plan products serving 94 million enrollees.

Quality Compass 2009 allows subscribers to generate custom reports by selecting health plans, measures, and benchmarks for up to three years of data. Data can also be compared against state, regional, and national benchmarks. In addition, the optional Data Exporter allows users to download their customized reports to a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet for further analysis. Improvements to Quality Compass 2009 include:
• Simplified report building and analysis
• Expanded benchmark options
• Ability to share reports with other licensed users
• Capabilities to build custom reports with more measures
• Two new measures of care and service quality—pharmacotherapy management of COPD exacerbation and consumer survey results on the ease with which members can find the cost of prescription medicines and other health care services or equipment

"Employers, health plans, pharmaceutical companies, and benefit consultants have long relied on Quality Compass for their quality improvement initiatives," says NCQA chief information officer, Rick Moore. "Quality Compass makes it possible to compare a health plan's quality and member satisfaction rates to those of other plans, allowing purchasers to make sound decisions and health plans to pinpoint areas for improvement."

Quality Compass contains information drawn from audited data reported to NCQA through its Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS) as well as the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS). NCQA also collected HEDIS and CAHPS data from Medicare and Medicaid plans. The Medicaid edition of Quality Compass will be available in October. The performance data also forms the basis of NCQA's annual State of Health Care Quality Report, which will be released on Oct. 8.

Quality Compass can be ordered online through NCQA's web site, www.ncqa.org/qualitycompass.aspx, or by calling NCQA customer support at (888) 275-7585.