Federal quality improvement programs using NQF-endorsed measures have reduced patient harm in hospitals by 21 percent, saving 125,000 lives and $28 billion in costs. The 3.1 million fewer harms to patients achieved from 2010-2015 include a 91 percent decrease in central line-associated blood stream infections and a 16 percent decrease in surgical site infections.
“Think about what this means for patients, families, and front-line providers,” said Kate Goodrich, MD, chief medical officer of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and director of the CMS Office of Clinical Standards & Quality. “These are really quite stunning results.” She shared the data as part of her remarks at NQF’s 2017 Annual Conference (PDF).
Goodrich stressed the “critically important” work with NQF and the broader healthcare quality community in achieving these successes but noted that much more work still needs to be done. In discussing CMS’s priorities for measure development, she underscored that NQF’s work to advance measurement science will be critical to breaking through measurement challenges such as capturing data on patient outcomes and experience, measuring diagnostic accuracy, and ensuring that measures—especially those used in accountability programs—undergo robust testing.
Goodrich praised the “coordinated approach” of NQF’s Measure Applications Partnership to help federal programs align measures across programs, and stressed the importance of NQF’s current work to put in place a rapid-cycle endorsement process.