NQF Agrees to Examine Additional
Hospital Measures
July 19, 2002 - The Board of Directors of the National
Forum for Health Care Quality Measurement and Reporting met
July 16 to discuss hospital and nursing home measures sets.
The Forum's Consumer and Purchaser Disclosure Group, a coalition
of consumers and purchasers that are working to make relevant
quality measures available to the public, led the presentation
on hospital measures. The group believes all of the domains
(safety, timeliness, effectiveness, efficiency, equity, and
patient-centerdness) established by the Institute of Medicine
should be addressed in a hospital measures set. They examined
the current NQF hospital measures set and compared it to the
set the Group developed. The Group's measure set included
19 cross-cutting measures that are not currently on the Forum's
list. Their presentation illustrated the ease and benefit
of examining additional measures. After significant discussion,
the Board agreed to begin developing a second set of hospital
measures. The second set will go through the Forum's consensus
process and eventually be merged with the first set of hospital
measures currently being developed.
The Board also discussed the status of its Nursing Home Measures
set. Forum members voted and approved all but a few measures.
The Board could have voted to endorse the set in its current
state; however, they agreed to wait because additional data
will soon be available from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
Services nursing home pilot project. In addition, other studies
and projects are concluding which could provide helpful data.
The Board of Directors is scheduled to meet again in October.
Jeff Patyk, Staff Specialist
AAMC Health Care Affairs
jpatyk@aamc.org
(202) 828-0498
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