Implementing pay-for-performance in Australian primary care: lessons from the United Kingdom and the United States

To the Editor: In their paper, Campbell and colleagues list the potential pitfalls of introducing pay-for-performance into Australian primary care.1 They emphasise that, in Australia, the electronic medical records used in general practice would not support the introduction of a scheme such as the Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) that is in place in the United Kingdom. In 2009, we demonstrated that it was quite possible to apply a QOF in a large Australian general practice by adapting the in-built search facility of a commonly used medical records program.2 We concluded that the introduction of a QOF in Australia would drive up the quality of our care.