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Child Health Quality Measures 2010

Call for Intent
April 2024

CALL FOR INTENT TO SUBMIT NEW STANDARDS
Child Health Quality Measures 2010

NQF is initiating a consensus development project seeking endorsement of measures for Child Health Quality Measures 2010

NOTICE TO MEASURE STEWARDS

If, after reviewing this Call for Intent, your organization believes it has one or more measures that address the scope and objectives of this project as described below and would like NQF to evaluate them for possible endorsement, please submit a call for intent to submit candidate standards by 28 July, 2010 to complete this process.

NQF has recently converted to electronic submission of materials. To submit your intent, log in with your NQF username and password and complete the form for each intended measure submission. If you have not created an NQF account, please follow the instructions on the log-in page.

BACKGROUND

Child health quality is an important, underemphasized area of measure development and endorsement. To date, NQF has endorsed more than 70 pediatric and perinatal measures. The set of NQF endorsed measures has steadily risen over the last several years, with emphasis in the areas of perinatal and neonatal care, chronic illness care, and care for hospitalized children.

In November 2009, NQF convened a Child Health Outcomes Steering Committee to identify, evaluate, and endorse additional measures suitable for public reporting and quality improvement that specifically address outcomes of child health. This project included both cross-cutting and condition-specific outcome measures. The Child Health Outcomes Project also identified gaps in existing outcome measures.

SCOPE OF ACTIVITIES

The recent release of an initial core set of measures for Medicaid and CHIP (Children's Health Insurance Program) voluntary use provides an important step in assessing child health quality by state programs. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality National Advisory Council Subcommittee on Children’s Healthcare Quality Measures for Medicaid and CHIP Programs (ARHQ SNAC) recently identified a number of priority areas for children without adequate measures, including mental health and substance abuse services, other specialty services, and inpatient care. Measures in key gap areas such as quality of well child care, dental care, and acute care for children, were highlighted. This consensus project will complement the AHRQ SNAC collaboration with the Center for Medicaid, CHIP, and Survey and Certification. While the initial core set of CHIPRA (Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act) measures will be prescribed (or specified) by the Secretary of Health and Human Services, there may be other appropriate measures that may enhance the portfolio of child health quality measures and could be used in the future for the pediatric quality measurement program as required by CHIPRA.
In this call, NQF would like to target measures that could be used in public reporting at the population level (e.g., state) and for the following conditions or cross-cutting areas applicable to the Medicaid population.

• respiratory issues such as asthma;
• overweight/obese;
• well child care;
• prevention and screening (e.g., immunizations, developmental delay);
• diabetes;
• prenatal/perinatal care;
• access to care (e.g., well-child care visits, access to primary care practitioners, emergency room utilization);
• oral health (e.g., access to services, dental caries);
• inpatient safety (e.g., pediatric catheter associated blood stream infection rates);
• mental health (e.g. depression, behavior problems, anxiety, ADHD); and
• patient experience with care.

Measure developers are asked to specify how “e-ready” their measures are, and to the extent possible, NQF will work with measure developers to submit measures that include electronic specification for electronic health records (EHR) that would align with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’s Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (ARRA- HITECH) requirements.

THE NQF PROCESS

The candidate measures will be considered for NQF endorsement as voluntary consensus standards. Agreement around the recommendations will be developed through NQF’s formal Consensus Development Process (CDP). This project will involve the active participation of representatives from across the spectrum of healthcare stakeholders and will be guided by a steering committee with assistance from multiple, condition-specific Technical Advisory Panels (TAPS).

Any organization or individual may submit measures for consideration. To be evaluated, candidate consensus standards must meet the following general criteria:

• be fully developed for use (e.g., research and testing have been completed);
• be intended for use in both public reporting and quality improvement;
• be open source or in the public domain; and
• have an identified measure steward.

FUNDING

This project is supported under a contract provided by the Department of Health and Human Services.

CONTACT INFORMATION

For more information, contact Suzanne Theberge at (202) 783-1300 or via e-mail at stheberge@qualityforum.org.

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Child Health Quality Measures 2010

CALL FOR INTENT TO SUBMIT NEW STANDARDS Child Health Quality Measures 2010

CALL FOR INTENT TO SUBMIT NEW STANDARDS
Child Health Quality Measures 2010