Tuesday, May 4, 2021

National Quality Forum Releases New Strategy Map for Quality Measures

While I was on a research topic, Google guided me to the press releases page of the National Qualify Forum (NQF), which has some interesting announcements.   The NQF functions as an organization to collect and revised quality measures.   Once a quality measure is in the NQF library, it may be adopted by private insurers or Medicare as a performance metric.  NQF press releases here.

Two caught my eye.  In March, they finalized a consensus document on "recommendations for measures in federal quality programs."   Webpages here and here.  The main work product is a 44-page PDF.



Also of interest, in January, the NQF convened a forum on measures suited for telehealth and for "health systems readiness" to respond to new challenges.   Webpage here.  Look for a future work product.  

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Last December, NQF published for public comment a list of "Measures Under Consideration," which is still posted although the comment cycle is long past.   This 85-pp PDF includes a number of cost-based measures, such as "episode costs for sepsis" (working number MUC200019).    Defined as, "The Sepsis cost measure evaluates clinicians’ risk-adjusted cost to Medicare for patients who receive inpatient medical treatment for sepsis. The measure score is a clinician’s average risk-adjusted cost for the episode group across all attributed episodes. This acute inpatient medical condition measure includes services that are clinically related and under the reasonable influence of the attributed clinician’s role in managing care during each episode from the clinical event that opens or “triggers” the episode through 45 days after. Medicare beneficiaries enrolled in Medicare Parts A and B during the performance period are eligible for the measure.  There's also a "melanoma resection episode-based cost measure" (MUC200018).  And an "asthma/COPD episode-based cost measure" (MUC200015 and a "colon rectal resection episode-based cost measure" (MUC200016).