Pharmacy Quality Alliance and AllazoHealth Form Research Partnership to Study and Improve Industry Standard Medication Adherence Metrics

PRESS RELEASE

Springfield, VA and New York, NY (March 4, 2015) - Pharmacy Quality Alliance (PQA, Inc.) 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.

Allazo has specific 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, "Through this partnership, Allazo's research will help determine ways to expand the settings of clinical care for use of PQA's medication adherence metrics. 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.

Allazo's CEO, Clifford Jones, said, "PQA is an extremely important standard setting body for medication adherence. We are happy to be working directly with PQA to improve the way medication adherence is measured."

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About PQA

Established in 2006, PQA represents pharmacy providers, pharmacy benefit managers, health plans, academia, consumer advocates, community pharmacies, health technology vendors, pharmaceutical research and manufacturing companies, and other stakeholders interested in improving the quality of the medication-use system.

PQA's mission is to: Improve the quality of medication management and use across health care settings with the goal of improving patients' health through a collaborative process to develop and implement performance measures and recognize examples of exceptional pharmacy quality. PQA provides a leadership role in identification and selection of metrics for evaluating the quality of the medication-use system, provides education on quality improvement, and connects pharmacists to healthcare improvement initiatives. For more information about the Pharmacy Quality Alliance, please visit www.PQAalliance.org or contact us at 703-690-1987.

About AllazoHealth

AllazoHealth is a predictive analytics firm that tackles the problem of medication non-adherence. Its AllazoEngine uses claims data and other information to anticipate which patients are at risk of not taking their medications and predict which medication adherence interventions will best influence individual patients' behavior. AllazoHealth provides its services to PBMs, health insurers, ACOs, and providers both as a stand-alone analytics solution and as a full-service medication adherence solution including the delivery of interventions. For more information, visit http://www.allazohealth.com or contact us at 888-464-2776.