The National Quality Forum’s Measure Applications Partnership (MAP) begun the initial stages of its intensive two-month review as part of its pre-rulemaking guidance to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The MAP Coordinating Committee meets January 22 and 23 to finalize the pre-rulemaking recommendations. MAP will deliver final measure recommendations to HHS on February 1, 2019.

MAP reviews standardized performance measures and makes recommendations to HHS for 18 federal programs that use measures for public reporting or payment purposes, including the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS), a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) program legislated by the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA).

In addition to recommending measures for use in federal programs, MAP has provided feedback on current measure sets and guidance on measure removal criteria. MAP’s important role contributes to reducing the administrative burden of measurement while ensuring that the measures in use are high-value measures.

“MAP’s recommendations provide guidance on quality measures for the nation. This is key to ensuring that the more than 55 million Americans who depend on Medicare get the quality care they deserve,” said Chip Kahn, MPH, president and chief executive officer of the Federation of American Hospitals, who co-chairs the MAP Coordinating Committee along with Harold Pincus, MD, professor and vice chair of psychiatry at Columbia University and director of quality and outcomes research at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital.

"MAP’s work is consensus-based and transparent to determine the best measures to assess quality,” said Dr. Pincus. “That’s never been more important as consumers, payers, and policymakers demand more value from their healthcare services.” 

For seven consecutive years, NQF has convened MAP, which includes more than 150 healthcare leaders and experts from nearly 90 private- and public-sector organizations. MAP volunteers represent consumers, purchasers, employers, health plans, clinicians and providers, communities and states, suppliers, and federal agency liaisons. The MAP hospital, clinician, and post-acute and long-term care (PAC/LTC) workgroups identify measurement gaps across settings, prioritize measures, and recommend areas for alignment.

MAP’s final hospital and PAC/LTC programmatic reports are due by February 15, and its final cross-cutting and clinician programming reports are due to HHS by March 15.