National Quality Forum Releases Measure Development and Endorsement Agenda: Prioritized List of Measure Gaps

WASHINGTON, Jan. 14, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The National Quality Forum delivered a Measure Development and Endorsement Agenda to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) this week.  Five top priority measure gap areas were identified: Appropriateness/Efficiency; Shared Decision Making; Function, Symptoms, and Quality of Life; Prevention of Adverse Events; and Communication.

"This prioritization project, requested and funded by HHS, provides guidance on how best to invest measure development resources, and will also assist NQF in evolving the portfolio of endorsed measures to be most useful for public reporting, performance-based payment, and quality improvement," said Janet M. Corrigan, PhD, MBA, president and CEO of the National Quality Forum.

Measure Prioritization Advisory Committee

Chaired by two prominent national leaders in healthcare—George Isham, MD, MS, medical director and chief health officer of HealthPartners, and Ellen Stovall, senior health policy advisor, National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship—the Measure Prioritization Advisory Committee is a multi-stakeholder group representing the interests of consumers, purchasers, healthcare providers and professionals, measure developers, government agencies, health plans, accreditation and certification bodies, and supplier and industry groups.

Despite many ongoing government and private sector efforts to standardize quality measures, quality of health and health care continues to be highly variable in the United States.  "There is a strong need for the development of quality and cost measures that will ensure broad transparency on the value of care around the most prevalent conditions and health risks that account for the greatest share of health care spending," said Dr. Isham.

Section 183 of the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008 provided funding to prioritize, endorse, and maintain valid quality performance measures.  This legislation and NQF's subsequent contract with HHS afforded NQF the opportunity to approach the evolution of its endorsed measures portfolio strategically by working with the Committee to construct a working Measure Development and Endorsement Agenda.  

Prioritized List of Measure Gaps

In March 2010, NQF convened the Measure Prioritization Advisory Committee charged with identifying priority conditions and developing a consolidated list of measure gaps for the construction of a Measure Development and Endorsement Agenda.  The consolidated list of measure gap domains and subdomains was constructed based on the Committee's prioritization of:

• Medicare conditions as well as Medicare measure gaps;
• child health conditions and risks as well as child health measure gaps; and
• population health measure gaps.

Alignment within the Quality Enterprise

The Measure Development and Endorsement Agenda Project serves as a bridge between priorities for measurement and uses of measurement information. "We believe the agenda will provide an important starting point for filling gaps in measures needed for various uses," said Ms. Stovall. "I am particularly pleased that many of the gaps the Committee identified focus on patient-centeredness—specifically those associated with shared-decision making, function, symptoms, quality of life and communication.   Filling these gaps will directly impact the quality of care that patients will ultimately receive."

Read the Final Report to HHS / More about the Project / Measure Prioritization Advisory Committee Roster 

The National Quality Forum (NQF) operates under a three-part mission to improve the quality of American healthcare by:

•  building consensus on national priorities and goals for performance improvement and working in partnership to achieve them;

•  endorsing national consensus standards for measuring and publicly reporting on performance; and

•  promoting the attainment of national goals through education and outreach programs.

For more information about NQF, visit www.qualityforum.org.

SOURCE National Quality Forum