The Opportunity
As part of NQF’s ongoing work with performance measurement for patients undergoing surgery, this project seeks to identify and endorse performance measures for accountability and quality improvement that address a number of surgical areas, including cardiac, thoracic, vascular, orthopedic, neurosurgery, urologic and general surgery. This project will seek new performance measures in addition to conducting maintenance reviews of surgical measures endorsed prior to 2012 using the most recent NQF measure evaluation criteria. The rate of surgical procedures is increasing annually. In 2010, 51.4 million inpatient surgeries in the United States were performed, and 53.3 million procedures in ambulatory surgery centers were completed.1 Ambulatory surgery centers account for 43 percent of all same-day surgery in the United States, and have been the fastest growing provider type participating in Medicare.2
NQF has endorsed surgical measures through a variety of projects beginning in 2004 with the National Voluntary Consensus Standards for Cardiac Surgery. Most recently, Phase 1 of the Surgical Endorsement Maintenance 2013 evaluated general and specialty surgical care across settings of care. The current NQF surgery portfolio includes measures focused on key surgical care processes and outcomes for surgical procedures.
About the Project
This project is the second cycle of measure evaluation by NQF’s Surgery Standing Committee, and builds on the work of the previous Surgery Endorsement project, launched in 2013. Phase 2 will seek to identify and endorse new measures that can be used to assess surgical conditions at any level of analysis or setting of care, and review endorsed measures scheduled for maintenance.
Objectives
A multi-stakeholder Standing Committee will evaluate newly submitted measures and make recommendations for which measures should be endorsed as consensus standards. This Committee will work to identify and endorse new performance measures for accountability and quality improvement that specifically address surgical processes, including pre and post-surgical care, timing of prophylactic antibiotic, adverse surgical outcomes, and other related topics. Additionally, the Committee will evaluate consensus standards previously endorsed by NQF under the maintenance process.
NQF Process
Measures are considered for NQF endorsement as national voluntary consensus standards through a process of consensus development that is guided by 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 Steering Committee.
Funding
This project is funded under NQF’s contract with the Department of Health and Human Services, Consensus-based Entities Regarding Healthcare Performance Measurement.
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.
Related NQF Work
Contact Information
For more information, please contact Nadine Allen or Andrew Lyzenga at 202-783-1300 or surgery@qualityforum.org.
Notes/References:
- National Hospital Discharge Survey: 2010 table, Procedures by selected patient characteristics - Number by procedure category and age
- http://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Provider-Enrollment-and-Certification/SurveyCertificationGenInfo/Downloads/ASC_HAI_MAP.pdf