The Opportunity

In 2010, diabetes affected 25.8 million people, or 8.3% of the US population. If left untreated, this chronic disease can lead to kidney failure, blindness, heart disease and stroke, and is the seventh leading cause of death in the United States. This project seeks to identify and endorse performance measures for accountability and quality improvement that address endocrine-specific conditions. The endocrine topic area includes measures for diabetes, thyroid disease, osteoporosis and metabolic syndrome.

NQF currently has more than thirty endorsed measures in the areas of diabetes and osteoporosis. The diabetes measures in NQF’s portfolio are some of the longest standing NQF endorsed measures. Since diabetes and osteoporosis are high-volume, high-morbidity, high-cost conditions, identifying new measures in this area is critical to continue to drive improvements in quality.

About the Project

The project begins in October 2013.

Objectives

Stakeholders have indicated a need for more frequent opportunities for measure submission and a need for greater consistency in evaluation of measures. As NQF performs the endorsement maintenance review of measures in endocrine topic areas, this project will pilot more frequent opportunities for measure submission A Standing Committee will guide the evaluation of endocrine measures overa series of six-month review cycles focused on smaller groupings of measures within a topic area (e.g., diabetes, osteoporosis) . The Standing Committee will evaluate the entire portfolio of measures over 2-3 years to foster harmonization and alignment, and identify important gaps in the endocrine portfolio.

NQF Process

Measures will be considered for NQF endorsement as national voluntary consensus standards. Consensus on the recommendations developed through NQF’s formal Consensus Development Process (CDP, Version 1.9). This project involves the active participation of representatives from across the spectrum of healthcare stakeholders and will be guided by a Standing Committee.

Funding

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

For information about the availability of auxiliary aids and services for NQF’s federally funded projects, please visit: http://www.medicare.gov/about-us/nondiscrimination/nondiscrimination-notice.html.

Contact Information

For more information, please contact Kathryn Streeter at 202-783-1300 or via email at endocrine@qualityforum.org.