What is the National Quality Forum? (back to top)
The National Quality Forum (NQF) is a unique, multi-stakeholder organization that has been instrumental in advancing efforts to improve quality through performance measurement and public reporting. NQF is a private, not-for-profit membership organization with more than 375 members representing virtually every sector of the healthcare system. NQF operates under a three-part mission to improve the quality of American healthcare by:

Setting national priorities and goals for performance improvement.
Endorsing national consensus standards for measuring and publicly reporting on performance.
Promoting the attainment of national goals through education and outreach programs.

NQF is a voluntary consensus standards setting body as specified by the National Technology and Transfer Advancement Act of 1995 and OMB Circular A-119 (1998). NQF endorsement, which involves rigorous, evidence-based review and a formal Consensus Development Process, has become the “gold standard” for healthcare performance measures. Major healthcare purchasers, including CMS, rely on NQF-endorsed measures to ensure that the measures are scientifically sound and meaningful and to help standardize performance measures used across the industry. To date, NQF has endorsed more than 500 measures.

Why measure healthcare? (back to top)
You can’t improve what you can’t measure. In the same way an athlete tracks changes in batting average or the time it takes to run a mile, the healthcare system uses measures to gauge progress and improve results. Measurement identifies where there are gaps in performance and allows us to gauge progress. Publicly reporting the results of measurement provides valuable information to patients choosing high quality providers, purchasers and insurers shaping payment policies to reward quality and efficiency, and physicians making referral decisions. Transparency is a catalyst for creating an environment that encourages and rewards excellence.

Having national standards for measurement – such as those endorsed by NQF - allow for apples to apples comparisons across regions so systems can learn from each other and create a culture of quality improvement.

How and why was NQF formed? (back to top)
In a report issued in 1998, the President's Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in the Health Care Industry proposed creation of NQF as part of an integrated national quality improvement agenda. Leaders from consumer, purchaser, provider, health plan, and health service research organizations met as the Quality Forum Planning Committee throughout 1998 and early 1999 to define the mission, structure, and financing of the National Quality Forum. The National Quality Forum officially launched on September 23, 1999.

Why is NQF important? (back to top)
The American healthcare system offers millions of patients access to healthcare provided by highly skilled, committed professionals and first-rate healthcare institutions. At the same time, the system is marked by serious and pervasive deficiencies in quality. Quality problems affect all patients, regardless of age, gender, financial resources, or race. In addition, quality problems cut across the delivery system, and are not the result of any single financing or payment arrangement. Quality deficiencies result in increased mortality and morbidity and in failure to alleviate conditions that cause pain and disability, leading to a lower quality of life, a less productive workforce, and billions of dollars in unnecessary costs.

To improve the quality of American healthcare, NQF convenes diverse stakeholders from across the healthcare system to set national priorities to improve healthcare quality and to endorse standards to gauge our progress in achieving those goals.

Where does NQF fit in the healthcare quality world? (back to top)
NQF is one of many organizations working to improve the quality of healthcare in the U.S. NQF has several roles in the quality landscape, include setting national priorities and goals, endorsing measures, and sponsoring various education and outreach activities aimed at facilitating achievement of the national goals. Each of these roles is vital to the quality improvement process and, ultimately, to the creation of a system of increased quality in healthcare.

Quality improvement is an ongoing process that involves many different individuals and organizations working in a variety of ways within many different levels in healthcare. Within the process, these individuals and organizations identify goals and priorities, develop measures, evaluate and endorse measures, select measures for implementation, implement measures, evaluate performance, and use data from that evaluation to set new priorities.

Does NQF develop standards? (back to top)
NQF participates in a contract with the Department of Health and Human Services. A small portion of that contract includes support for measure development. Therefore, NQF occasionally acts as a subcontractor for measure development. NQF does not develop measures directly, but facilitates measure development through a contractual process with measure development organizations. There is a very clear and firm separation between development activities and the endorsement process.

Does NQF implement standards? (back to top)
No. Organizations like the Quality Alliance Steering Committee and other quality alliances focus on implementation, including the selection of measures for public reporting and strategies for aggregating data to produce measures. The role of NQF is to set national priorities and goals, endorse measures, and sponsor various education and outreach activities aimed at facilitating achievement of the national goals.

What is NQF’s role in the National Priorities Partnership? (back to top)
NQF convened the National Priorities Partnership (NPP) in 2008 and is one of the group’s 28 Partners.

NPP is an initiative comprised of 28 Partner organizations acting to transform America’s healthcare system from the inside out. The Partners represent multiple stakeholders drawn from the public and private sectors who have significant influence over healthcare and are committed to working together to deliver a high-value, high-performing healthcare system for all Americans. As a first step, the Partners have identified a set of National Priorities and Goals targeting six crosscutting areas — patient and family engagement, population health, safety, care coordination, palliative and end-of-life care, and overuse — to help focus performance improvement efforts on high-leverage areas with the most potential to result in substantial improvements in health and healthcare.

Consensus Development Process

How does NQF build consensus? (back to top)
NQF uses its formal voluntary consensus development process to evaluate and endorse consensus standards, including performance measures, best practices, frameworks, and reporting guidelines. The NQF consensus development process is designed to produce consensus among a variety of stakeholder groups from across the healthcare industry.

Because NQF uses this formal consensus development process, it is recognized as a voluntary consensus standards-setting organization as defined by the National Technology Transfer and Advancement Act of 1995 and Office of Management and Budget Circular A-119.

Over the past 10 years, the procedures that form NQF’s consensus development process, and NQF's implementation of those procedures, have evolved to ensure that NQF's evaluation of candidate consensus standards continues to meet the highest standards of quality measurement. NQF is currently using version 1.8 of the process.

NQF’s consensus development process consists of nine principle steps:

What is the CSAC? (back to top)
The Consensus Standards Approval Committee (CSAC) considers all candidate consensus standards approved by NQF's membership for possible endorsement by NQF. Members of the committee possess a broad breadth and depth of expertise and are drawn from a diverse set of stakeholder perspectives. Some committee members possess specific expertise in measure development, application, and reporting. After their detailed review of a candidate standard, the CSAC can recommend to the NQF Board of Directors that the standard be endorsed or not endorsed. A recommendation of endorsement from the CSAC is not the equivalent of endorsement by NQF; rather, it is the NQF Board of Directors who, guided by the CSAC’s recommendation, decides if a candidate standard should be endorsed by NQF.

Health Information Technology

How can HIT improve quality? (back to top)
Quality improvement is happening at a slower rate than it should. For example, the National Health Care Quality Report shows an average annual improvement of only 1.8 percent on a selected set of performance measures while healthcare expenditures grew at 7.6 percent. The U.S. healthcare system is also extraordinarily fragmented. The average Medicare patient sees two primary care physicians and five specialists annually, across a median of four different practices. The fragmentation of care is even more pronounced for patients with chronic conditions; for example, a Medicare patient with coronary artery disease sees three primary care physicians and seven specialists in a given year.

HIT can facilitate the exchange of patient information and communication between providers and across care settings, which can create safer, more effective and patient-centered care.

Much of the health care sector lacks critical organizational supports necessary to consistently provide effective, safe and efficient care across the entire patient-focused episode. HIT is one of those critical organizational supports.

In its landmark report, Crossing the Quality Chasm, the Institute of Medicine emphasized the importance of using HIT to:

Design care processes based on best practices
Translate new clinical knowledge and skills into practice
Support the work of multi-disciplinary teams
Enable the coordination of care across patient conditions, services and settings
Measure and improve performance

Has NQF endorsed measures in HIT? (back to top)
In 2008, NQF endorsed nine structural measures for Health Information Technology. The measures address electronic prescribing, electronic health record (EHR) interoperability, care management, quality registries, and the medical home. The HIT structural measures are intended to help providers assess the efficiency and standardization of current HIT systems and identify areas where additional HIT tools can be used.

What is HITEP? (back to top)
In 2007 the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) commissioned NQF to convene the multi-stakeholder Health Information Technology Expert Panel (HITEP) to address the ability of electronic health records to create and aggregate data for quality measurement.

There have been two Expert Panels since the inception of HITEP in 2007. The first Panel recommended a high-priority set of quality measures; identified a set of required data types that were incorporated into the Healthcare IT Standards Panel (HITSP) Interoperability Specification for Quality; developed a framework for evaluating the quality of these data types; and identified gaps and made recommendations to enable automated quality measurement.

A new HITEP was convened in 2008 to expand on the efforts of the first HITEP to advance the automation of electronic health records (EHRs) to collect, aggregate, and transmit quality measures. The panel and two workgroups will focus on recommendations for a standardized Quality Data Model (formerly QDS) and enabling quality measurement through improved clinical workflows within and across care settings.

Membership

Who are NQF’s Members? (back to top)
NQF’s more than 375 members represent virtually every sector of the healthcare system: consumers, purchasers, health plans, providers, healthcare professionals, suppliers, community health organizations, and quality alliances. These disparate groups come together to work toward quality improvements in the healthcare system.

Why join NQF? (back to top)
Improving healthcare is a matter of critical importance that will require action by a wide variety of healthcare stakeholders. NQF brings together healthcare leaders from every sector of the industry as part of a national dialogue that sets national priorities, endorses national consensus standards for measuring and publicly reporting on performance, and promotes the attainment of national goals through education and outreach programs. Take your seat at our table. Make your voice heard.

For additional information on managing your membership, please visit our FAQ page.

Publication Orders

How do I obtain copies of NQF reports? (back to top)
NQF's online publication ordering system will be launched soon. In the interim, to order a publication, please contact NQF by phone during business hours at (202) 783-1300 or via email at info@qualityforum.org with the subject line PUBLICATIONS ORDER. Our staff will contact you for payment details. All requests will be answered within 24 hours and orders fulfilled within 48 hours. Thank you for your patience as we work to get our new system online.

All NQF publications are available to the public in Adobe PDF format. Publications released within three years of the present time are available to NQF members at no cost and to non-members for a fee. Older publications are available to everyone at no cost.

Navigating NQF’s website

Why should I create a user account on the NQF website? (back to top)
When you create a user account, you will be able to:

update your personal information;
“follow” specific projects NQF is working on;
access to a personal dashboard that tracks all your followed projects.

Members of NQF will have access to upcoming member votes, member calls, and member activities (through their Dashboard).

NQF respects your privacy and will not sell, rent, or trade e-mail lists or personal information with other organizations for marketing purposes. Read our full privacy policy.

How do I log into the NQF website? (back to top)
At the very top of each NQF webpage, you will see a link for "Log-In". The link will take you to the NQF Login page. Type your username and password and select "Sign In". You may want to check “Remember Me”, so you won’t need to enter your username and password each time you visit the NQF site.

If you need a username and password, select Log-In at the top of any webpage. Select "Enroll Now" from the Login page. You will be sent your username and password via e-mail.

Once you’ve signed in, you will see several reminders tracking current projects, as well as voting and commenting periods. Clicking on any of these links will route you to your personalized dashboard.

How do I log in if I forgot my password? (back to top)
If you’ve forgotten your password, you can reset it by clicking “reset password” on the NQF login page. This will allow you to reset and choose a new password.

What is My Dashboard? (back to top)
Your dashboard allows you to edit, organize, and track information directly related to your engagement with NQF.

From the dashboard, you’ll be able to:

update your contact information;
view all open action items for NQF projects;
and track specific projects in which you’re interested.

Once you’ve logged into the NQF website, you will be able to access your personalized dashboard.

You can select "Dashboard" from the Tools area on the right side of the homepage. You may also select “My Dashboard” from the Membership tab.

How do I use My Dashboard? (back to top)
Editing your contact information. On the left hand side of your dashboard, you will see your contact information. Select "Edit My Info". You’ll be redirected to another page where you can enter any changes. Save your changes and select "Return to the Dashboard". Your contact information will be updated in NQF’s database.

You will also see your organization’s information, including your membership status, the NQF member council to which your organization belongs, and the contact information for your organization’s primary member contact.

If you are the primary member contact, you will also see an edit link next to the “MY ORGANIZATION” header. This will allow you to update your organization’s contact information. However, if your organization’s name or primary contact person has changed, please contact NQF member services directly.

Following Projects. In the middle of your dashboard, you will see a list of NQF projects that you’ve selected to “follow”.

You can add a project to your list by selecting the follow button located at the top of each NQF project’s webpage. To stop following, or “unfollow,” a project, simply select "unfollow" that appears in the project's page or select the X next to the name project name in "My Projects" section of your deashboard.

If you’re following more than three projects, you’ll see a scroll bar within your projects list on your dashboard.

Tracking Action Items. At the bottom of your dashboard is the Action Items box. Through this feature, you can track all action items that are currently open, and plan ahead for your participation in upcoming actions.

The Action Items box lists open and upcoming calls for nominations, calls for candidate standards, comment periods, and voting periods. Each action item contains three pieces of information: the date range for the action, the type of action, and the NQF project with which the action is associated.

You can go directly to the project page associated with a particular action item by clicking on the project’s name within the action item list.

If you are the primary member contact, you will be able to access an open ballot by clicking on the “Voting” link beneath the “Action” header. If you are not the primary contact for your organization, you will be able to see if your organization has voted, if the voting ballot is in process, or if no vote has yet been submitted.

How do I change my password?(back to top)
To change your password, you have to do the following:

Go to your dashboard.
Select "Edit My Info" on the left hand side next to your contact information.
On the Update Information page, select "ID & password" in the left navigation.
Enter your current password and your new password. Select "Save". Your password has now been changed.

For more information on changing your password, check out NQF Website - How to change your password (PDF).

National Quality Forum | 1030 15th St, NW, Suite 800, Washington, DC 20005

Calendar Help

FAQs/Help

Table of Contents

About NQF

Consensus Development Process

Health Information Technology

Membership

Publication Orders

Navigating NQF’s website