Media Advisory - Telephone Briefing 

Note: This briefing is for media only. NQF member event is scheduled on March 16 at 4:00pm ET.

What:

The National Quality Forum’s (NQF) Measure Applications Partnership (MAP) is defining new ways to ensure quality measurement is improving healthcare for patients while reducing burden for clinicians and other providers. In an upcoming report, MAP recommends significant improvements to measure sets used in federal programs. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) considers MAP’s analyses and guidance in the federal rulemaking process for quality and efficiency measures used in various payment programs. Specifically, MAP recommends that HHS consider the future removal of measures currently used in seven federal healthcare value-based purchasing, public reporting, and other programs. MAP also provides recommendations for improving measure sets used in nine additional federal programs.

Who:

• Shantanu Agrawal, MD, MPhil, president and CEO, NQF
• Charles “Chip” Kahn, MPH, president and CEO, Federation of American Hospitals and co-chair of the MAP Coordinating Committee
• Harold Pincus, MD, professor and vice chair of psychiatry, Columbia University; director of quality and outcomes research, New York-Presbyterian Hospital; and co-chair of the MAP Coordinating Committee
• Helen Burstin, MD, MPH, chief scientific officer, NQF

When:

Thursday, March 16, 2017
11:00-11:30am ET

Background:

The 55 million Americans insured by Medicare deserve safe and effective care. MAP’s recommendations about new measures and improvements to existing measures used in federal healthcare programs can help focus healthcare providers and payers on the high-value measures that drive improvement without adding burden to hospitals, clinicians, and other providers who care for patients.

Convened in 2011, NQF’s MAP provides private-sector guidance to HHS on the quality and efficiency of measures under consideration for federal public reporting and performance-based payment programs. In its 2017 guidance, MAP addresses the importance of removing measures that are no longer driving improvements in patient care or that do not meet the rigorous scientific criteria for NQF endorsement.   In order for CMS to act on MAP’s recommendations, it will likely need to engage in rulemaking as well as consider other programmatic needs not taken into account by the MAP process.

Register to participate in the media briefing.