Frequently Asked Questions about Contract Focus

What are the benefits of QMS-Contract Focus over other audit tools?

Will QMS Ltd work with our PCT to develop other searches relevant to local priorities?

Will the clinical system be affected by running MIQUEST queries?

How long will it take to run the queries through our clinical system?

What are the technical requirements to use this product?

What is the difference between Contract Focus the national QMAS system?

Further Questions and Answers can be found on our discussion forum

What are the benefits of QMS-Contract Focus over other audit tools?

Each clinical system provides their own tools to assist in meeting the QOF, and the facilities vary between systems in the breadth and depth of analysis that can be performed. Where practices within a PCT use a variety of systems, it is often difficult to obtain consistent data across all practices. Contract Focus provides a consistent analysis across all practices and aggregating the data at the PCT can provide a comprehensive PCT audit tool. There are many benefits to practices using Contract Focus:

QMS-Contract Focus provides additional quality searches in each disease area of the QOF. These are based around NICE, NSF guidance and other priorities. There are 77 clinical indicators in QOF, but QMS-Contract Focus includes over 700 audits.
QMS-Contract Focus includes specific searches to help the practice improve data quality. QMS-Contract Focus can identify patients whose clinical data indicates that they may have a disease but are not included on that disease register, due to coding issues.
QMS-Contract Focus allows the practice to apply complex filters to patient lists, for example identifying patients who have failed to meet several indicators.
QMS-Contract Focus enables the practice to make estimates of practice income, based on prevalence figures and population sizes that the practice inputs. These assumptions can be adjusted as information is received from the DoH.
QMS-Contract Focus can be used to support the practice to develop a review and recall system for disease areas of QOF. In all disease areas, QMS-Contract Focus can identify those patients who do not have a code indicating that a review has been done.
QMS-Contract Focus includes a referrals module to enable the practice to start to audit its referrals by subspecialty. This process will be essential as practices try to meet the challenges of the CHOICE agenda, and Practice Based Commissioning.

Will QMS Ltd work with our PCT to develop other searches relevant to local priorities?

QMS Ltd is keen to work with PCTs to develop additional modules according to the PCTs priorities. For example, we have worked with our current PCT users to develop PCT-wide audits on smoking cessation and monitoring of enhanced services.

In some cases we have produced customisations that allow PCT-written queries to be managed by Contract Focus - please contact us for more information.

Will the clinical system be affected by running MIQUEST queries?

QMS-Contract Focus is not part of the clinical system and no software is required to be installed into the practice clinical server. Many clinical systems are not affected by running MIQUEST queries, but if the system is affected, the queries can be scheduled to run outside normal working hours.

How long will it take to run the queries through our clinical system?

The length of time to run the searches varies depending on the clinical system and the capacity of the server. Practices with up to date servers can often run the queries in 1-2 hours, and most systems can run the queries within the working day.

What are the technical requirements to use this product?

MIQUEST interpreter software must be installed and configured on your clinical system in order to extract data for analysis by Contract Focus. This can be obtained free of charge from your clinical system supplier. The system requirements for the PC on which Contract Focus will be installed are detailed here., but all the prerequisite software is freely available to NHS users.

What is the difference between Contract Focus and the national QMAS system?

QMAS and QMS-Contract Focus are designed for different functions. QMAS is designed to organise the payments to practices, whereas QMS-Contract Focus is an iterative quality improvement tool. For example, QMS-Contract Focus enables you to identify patients who do not meet targets, but this is not possible with QMAS. QMS-Contract Focus includes approximately 10 times as many indicators as QMAS.