Setting Standards: The National Quality Forum

When AHRQ assumed the responsibility from the Quality Interagency Coordination Task Force (QuIC) report, Doing What Counts for Patient Safety, to develop practice changes to reduce harm from medical errors, it faced two problems: there were few proven safe practices, and there was a dearth of standards by which to evaluate them. A standard setter was needed.

The CoreQ: Development and Testing of a Nursing Facility Resident Satisfaction Survey

The development and testing of a nursing facility resident satisfaction survey (i.e., CoreQ) that could be used for public reporting purposes is presented here. This is important as very little satisfaction with care information is publicly available for nursing facility consumers. Validity testing is reported detailing the development of the CoreQ: Short Stay Discharge questionnaire and a measure that was calculated from the items in the questionnaire. This questionnaire resulted in four items whose combined score gives a measure representing participants’ overall satisfaction with the nursing facility. The measure parsimoniously reports this satisfaction as a score (ranging from 0 to 100) and was recently endorsed by the National Quality Forum (NQF). The measure may have significance for report cards and payment metrics, as it incorporates the consumers’ opinion.

The NQF Scientific Methods Panel: Enhancing the Review and Endorsement Process for Performance Measures

In the summer of 2017, the National Quality Forum (NQF) announced the formation of a Scientific Methods Panel (hereafter referred to as “the Panel”) as part of a redesign of its endorsement process. NQF created the Panel in response to stakeholder request during a Kaizen improvement event held in May 2017. Given the Panel’s role in the endorsement of performance measures used in national payment programs, the objective of this article is to describe the work of the Panel, and to describe its function in the larger context of the NQF measure endorsement process and in the measurement enterprise writ large. This article also serves as an introduction to a series of planned white papers being authored by the panel on specific technical issues in the area of health care performance measurement.

Supportive Oncology Collaborative: Initial impact of supportive oncology screening and care.

180 Background: The Institute of Medicine (IOM) 2013 report recommends supportive oncology care from diagnosis through survivorship, to end of life. The Coleman Supportive Oncology Collaborative (CSOC) developed a city-wide plan to improve supportive oncology. Metrics derived from the Commission on Cancer (CoC), ASCO Quality Oncology Practice Initiative (ASCO-QOPI) and National Quality Forum (NQF) were used to assess the CSOC impact. Methods: Medical records of consecutive cancer patients from 6 practice improvement cancer centers in Chicago (3 academic, 2 safety-net, 1 public) were reviewed for 2 periods: 2014 (n = 843) and Q1 of 2015 (n = 313). Descriptive statistics assessed differences in quality metrics. Results: Significant improvement was achieved in 6 of 8 core supportive oncology metrics (see table). Conclusions: Consolidated metrics are feasible to assess supportive oncology quality. Early data indicate improvement and effectiveness of the collaborative approach. [Table: see text]