March 30, 2001
Quality Forum's Hospital Measures Steering Committee Begins Work
The Hospital Quality Measures Steering Committee of the National Forum for Health Care Quality Measurement and Reporting met on March 21. The steering committee will guide the forum's two-part hospital quality measures project.
The first part will consist of a review of current measures used by the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Health Care Organizations (JCAHO), peer review organizations and others. The steering committee will use the review of measures to develop an initial set of quality performance measures for the nation's acute care hospitals. The forum hopes to complete this aspect of the project by December 2001.
The second part of the project involves developing a framework to review new measures and update the initial set. The forum's goal is to complete this work by October 2002.
The co-chairs of the steering committee are Cary Sennett, M.D., Ph.D., and Mary Wakefield, R.N., Ph.D. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) are jointly sponsoring the project, which stems from the Quality Interagency Task Force (QuIC) February 2000 report to the president on patient safety initiatives in the federal government.
After examining current hospital performance measures, the steering committee focused on the scope and priorities for the initial measure set. They agreed to focus on existing, non-proprietary measures, which could provide accessible quality information to a variety of external audiences. In addition, they wanted to focus on high volume conditions that are applicable across populations. However, the steering committee was concerned about gaps in current measures. To address this concern they directed forum staff to research any existing evidence based measures on patient safety, pain management, functional status, patient experiences and measures that are condition, procedure, and disease specific. The steering committee has tentatively scheduled its next meeting for late May or early June.
Information: Jeff Patyk, AAMC Division of Health Care Affairs, 202-828-0498.
