Home > About Us > Leadership > President's Report Archive > January 2004
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No significant changes.
One Program Director departed for a promotion and new opportunity in November 2003. As previously reported, we anticipate hiring one or two additional Research Analysts (e.g., Masters degree training with 0-2 years experience) and one or two Program Directors/Senior Program Directors (e.g., RN, PharmD, PhD, MD plus 5-10 years experience) in the next 2-3 months.
If the applications that are pending Board action are approved, membership will stand at 201 member organizations.
The Purchaser Council and Consumer Councils held elections that concluded in mid-December 2004. The current leadership was re-elected to 2-year terms beginning on January 1, 2004. Elected for the Purchaser Council were Chris Queram, Chair, and Renee Bailey-Turner, Vice Chair. Elected for the Consumer Council were Brian Lindberg, Chair, and Debra Ness, Vice Chair.
All Councils continue to meet regularly by conference call and/or e-mail.
We have just finalized the arrangements for the Spring Membership Meeting, which will be held in conjunction with a meeting of the Board of Directors and a meeting of the Ambulatory Care Project Workgroups. Specifically, the Ambulatory Care Project meeting will be held on April 27th; the Membership meeting on April 28th, and the Board meeting on April 29th. The venue for all three meetings will be held the Hilton Logan Airport in Boston, MA.
In early 2004 we will ask for volunteers to plan the 5th Annual Meeting, to be held October 6-7, 2004, in Washington, DC. The meeting venue will be the Four Seasons Washington, DC (Georgetown). Because the hotel does not charge for meeting room rental and because catering and AV costs are comparable, we believe our costs will be the same or lower than for the other hotels that could not accommodate us this year. A very small block of hotel rooms will be available at the Four Seasons, and a larger block will be available at the Melrose, 3 blocks away, at a rate lower than last year's hotel rooms at the JW Marriott.
During the Executive Session for this meeting, the Governance Committee will make a recommendation to the Board of Directors on filling the seat vacated with Allen Feezor's (CalPERS) resignation. [NOTE: Dale Whitney of UPS in Atlanta, GA was elected to fill this seat.]
NQF continues to negotiate with AHRQ, NCI, CMS, and CDC for phase II of the Quality of Care Performance Measures for Cancer project. NQF also has met with Delmarva Foundation and CMS regarding two work statements for additional work in 2004-2005. While related to hospital care, the specific scope of work and timing of such work remain to be identified by CMS. In December 2003, NQF was awarded a grant from the Commonwealth Foundation to look at implementation of Safe Practice 10 (Informed Consent) in low literacy/Low English Proficiency populations. Also in December 2003, NQF was awarded a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to begin phase I to identify and endorse a comprehensive set of voluntary consensus standards for ambulatory care. Phase I of this project involves identifying priorities and is slated to run through August 2004.
Serious Reportable Adverse Events in Healthcare: A Consensus Report
In addition to the Minnesota law previously reported, NQF recently became aware of a Texas law that uses some of the NQF-endorsed events and definitions. We will follow-up with the appropriate Texas
officials for additional information on implementation of the law.
Voluntary Consensus Standards for Adult Diabetes Care: 2004 Update
Following a conference call of the NQF Diabetes Review Committee, updated specifications for both the accountability and quality improvement measures are being developed by NCQA and AMA, respectively. Once specifications are received, we will conduct a second 30-day review.
Safe Practices for Better Healthcare
The Leapfrog Group has proposed a new "leap" that incorporates the 27 NQF safe practices that were not previously part of their initiative. They distributed the new "leap" for comment in December.
National Voluntary Consensus Standards for Hospital Care: An Initial Performance Measure Set
Ten of the endorsed measures are now being publicly reported on the CMS web site as part of a voluntary hospital reporting initiative; subject to the final decision of the Secretary of Health and Human Services, these ten measures must be reported by September 2005 in order for facilities to receive maximum payment from the government. Additional measures from the NQF-endorsed set are under discussion to be reported and added to the web site over the next year.
National Voluntary Consensus Standards for Nursing Home Care
A second round of voting on the "weight loss" measure has concluded and will be considered by the Board, which will also deliberate on the "nurse staffing," measure.
Consumer-Focused Mammography Center Quality Measures
A draft of recommended consumer-focused measures of mammography screening that merit further testing in a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation pilot test was posted for review and comment by NQF
Members. The comment period closed Wednesday, January 28, 2004. Although this is not a consensus project, review comments will be posted on the NQF web site in the usual manner, as well as being
shared with the project sponsor (RWJF).
National Voluntary Consensus Standards for Nursing-Sensitive Care Performance Measurement
Voting on the consensus report and 19 nursing-sensitive performance measures concluded on Monday, January 26, 2004. The Board of Directors will review and act on the results of the balloting at its meeting
on January 29, 2004.
Home Health Performance Measures
The new consensus project on home health care performance measures was launched with a Call for Steering Committee Nominations (closed January 9) and a Call for Measures (closed January 28). Nominations for Steering Committee members are currently under review. This project is funded largely by CMS.
Cardiac Surgery Performance Measures
The first meeting of the "Standardizing Cardiac Surgery Measures" Steering Committee will be held in Washington, DC on February 9, 2004. The meeting is open to NQF Members only (pre-registration is
required).
Child Healthcare Quality
An invitational Workshop bringing together NQF Members and other child healthcare quality measurement experts was held on January 8, 2004. Proceedings from the workshop will be posted on the NQF web site within the next few weeks. The workshop was supported in part by the March of Dimes and the National Association of Children's Hospitals and Related Institutions, as well as in-kind support for background papers from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and others.
Behavioral Health
A workshop to explore the dimensions of a project on reaching consensus on a set of performance measures for quality of behavioral health care is being planned for spring 2004. The workshop is supported in part by Potomac Ridge Behavioral Health System/Adventist HealthCare and the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Cancer Care Quality Measures
Negotiations with AHRQ and NCI on the scope and process for phase II of the project continue. Some issues relating to the impact of the NQF's policy on proprietary measures on these negotiations will be discussed by the Board at its January 29, 2004, meeting.
Patient Safety Taxonomy
We have launched a consensus project to establish a standard patient safety taxonomy with support, in part, from AHRQ and the California HealthCare Foundation. The Call for Steering Committee Nominations resulted in 38 nominations; these are currently under review.
Ambulatory Care Quality
Phase 1 of a project to standardize performance measures for ambulatory care quality has begun, with support from RWJF. In this phase, NQF will establish consensus around the priority topics within the ambulatory care setting that would benefit from the standardization of performance measurement sets and public reporting mechanisms. NQF Members wishing to participate in Workgroups to develop candidate priority areas should indicate their desire to participate as soon as possible. The first meeting of the Workgroups will be in Boston, MA, on April 27, 2004, in conjunction with the Spring Membership and Board of Directors meetings.
Informed Consent and Patient Safety
We have received funding from the Commonwealth Foundation to explore the implementation of the NQF-endorsed "safe practice" relating to informed consent for low literacy/limited English proficient patients. We are seeking healthcare providers interested in collaborating in this project.
Standardizing Credentialing for Independent Licensed Practitioners
Efforts to identify funding for this project continue.
National Commission for Quality Long-Term Care
A contract has been executed. NQF Members were invited to submit nominations for Commissioners. Announcements on the establishment of the Commission, including appointments, will be forthcoming in the coming weeks.
Projects in Development
At the request of the VA, NQF sponsored a workshop to explore issues in medical device security and patient safety earlier on January 7, 2004. A report on the meeting and recommendations for further action are being prepared. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration has expressed interest in NQF pursuing consensus on performance measures for substance abuse treatment.
An active outreach effort continues.
The Advisory Committee on Implementation Strategy and Priorities held its second in-person meeting on October 30, 2003, and identified a series of draft implementation priorities. NQF Members were asked to review the priorities by December 19, 2003. The comments have been collated and will be reviewed with the Committee in the next few weeks.
The Advisory Committee on Data Integrity and Availability has met twice by conference call and once informally in conjunction with the Annual Meeting. Currently it has fielded a survey asking organizations to identify their best practices related to measure development.