Current Activities:
- As part of the Evaluation of NPP, NQF released case studies on January 24, 2012 illustrating how five organizations used NPP's earlier priority setting efforts to guide or amplify work advancing national priorities. Read the release.
- NPP released its input on the National Quality Strategy to HHS on September 1, 2011. Read the report.
Background
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) created new responsibilities for NQF as the consensus-based entity, including convening a multistakeholder group to provide annual input to the Department of Health and Human Services on the development of a National Quality Strategy. To fulfill this role, NQF convened the National Priorities Partnership (NPP) to:
- Identify national goals that map to the priorities put forth in the National Quality Strategy;
- Provide input on measures for tracking national progress toward the goals; and
- Offer guidance on high-leverage strategic opportunities to accelerate improvement.
The NPP is a collaborative effort of 51 major national organizations—which brings together public- and private-sector stakeholder groups in a forum that balances the interests of consumers, purchasers, health plans, clinicians, providers, communities, states, and suppliers in achieving the aims of better care, affordable care, and healthy people and communities.
Ongoing Activities
Input to the National Quality Strategy
Under contract to provide input to the HHS Secretary on the 2012 National Quality Strategy, NPP put forth its report on national priorities on September 1, 2011. In order to provide more meaningful input on each priority, the structure for this work allowed the full NPP to serve as an overarching committee, while Partners divided into three subcommittees responsible for advising on goals, measures and strategic opportunities specific to three domains of the National Quality Strategy: Healthy People/Healthy Communities, Better Care, and Affordable Care. This important work evolved from NPP’s previous input to HHS on national priorities and goals, including a report submitted on October 14, 2010, as well as NPP’s 2008 report, Aligning Our Efforts to Transform America’s Healthcare.
Partnership for Patients
In April 2011, Department of Health and Human Services launched the Partnership for Patients initiative to dramatically improve patient safety across the country. This initiative sought to engage stakeholders from the private and public sectors to reduce all cause harm and hospital readmissions.
To reach the goals of this initiative, HHS requested that NQF convene NPP for quarterly meetings to identify opportunities for public-private sector collaboration to advance the aims the Partnership for Patients. In addition, in June 2011, the Partnership for Patients – NPP Patient Safety Webinar Series was launched to bring together thought leaders and frontline providers to accelerate change in local communities nationwide. This series of 13 webinars, touching on each of the nine areas of focus in the Partnership for Patients’ goals, brought together over 10,000 people around the country to discuss strategies for starting and sustaining meaningful execution of change in organizations across the nation.
Contact Information
For more information contact Wendy Vernon, Senior Director, at 202-783-1300 or priorities@qualityforum.org.
