Home > About Us > Leadership > President's Report Archive > May 2003
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No significant changes.
No changes since January 2003. We have interviewed several candidates for the Communications Officer position in the last couple months. This summer or fall, depending on the outcome of current contract negotiations and funding requests, we may seek to hire one or two additional Research Analysts (e.g., Masters degree training with 0-2 years experience) and possibly a Program Director. Positions will be advertised via newspapers, electronic listservs, etc.
During its April 18, 2003 conference call, the Board approved 19 new membership applications. With the four applications approved today, NQF membership now stands at 176. Approximately a dozen members did not renew their membership for 2003. Based on our follow-up contact with these organizations, non-renewal was most often due to financial constraints or changes in personnel (i.e., the previous NQF contact placed a higher priority on membership than the new employee).
The Membership Meeting that just concluded was attended by 67 representatives of Member organizations and 8 Board members. Member turn out was lower than in previous years, and informal feedback to date has attributed the lower turn out to: i) location; ii) concerns about traveling because of the war in Iraq; and iii) organizational cutbacks in travel funds because of the economy. The nominal registration fee ($50) was not mentioned as a barrier, and "no-shows" were markedly less at this meeting than for previous ones.
All Councils continue to meet regularly by conference call and/or e-mail. The first all-Member conference call for discussion on the five remaining Group 2 hospital measures was judged to be a success, and the Council Chairs recommend increased opportunities for inter-Council activities and calls, starting with the May Membership Meeting.
The Purchaser and Consumer Councils will hold elections this fall. As previously approved by the Board, the nomination period will commence shortly after the Annual Meeting, which will be held on September 29-30, 2003.
As noted in the April 18th call summary distributed to Members, the Board approved by-laws amendments to permit four new at-large appointments and one new liaison appointment. The Board also approved filling these positions and two existing vacancies, as follows: Harris Berman, Allen Feezor, Norma Lang, Debra Ness, Paul O'Neill, James Varnum, and Elias Zerhouni.
John Lumpkin, who has joined the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation as Senior Vice President, has resigned his seat on the Board. A call for nominations has been circulated to Members and posted on the NQF web site. The preferred candidate will have expertise in state public health, as well as health care delivery and quality management. The nomination period closes on June 2, 2003, after which the Governance Committee will review the nominations and make a recommendation.
NQF's independent auditors-Gelman, Rosenberg, and Freedman-concluded the field portion of the audit in March 2003 and have forwarded a draft report indicating a clean audit for the Board's review at the May, 14, 2003, meeting.
NQF continues to negotiate with AHRQ and NCI for part II of the project to identify quality measures for cancer care. It is our understanding that the government intends to fully fund a project that encompasses three tissue types and/or cross-cutting areas.
Serious Reportable Adverse Events in Healthcare: A Consensus Report
A review will be undertaken to assess updating the list. We continue to work with the National Academy for State Health Policy (NASHP) on implementing the list at the state level. Toward that end, last month NASHP issued a "User's Guide" to implementing the list by analyzing the various state reporting initiatives in place and definitions and events utilized as compared to the NQF report.
Voluntary Consensus Standards for Adult Diabetes Care
The Alliance for Diabetes Care has informed us it will be forwarding a proposed revised measure set in the near future. We anticipate additional discussion on utilizing the CDP to vet these measures.
Safe Practices for Better Healthcare
The four safe practices subjected to a second round of voting passed all four Councils, so the final set encompasses 30 practices. The report will be released on May15, 2003, at NQF's conference, "Safe Practices for Better Healthcare-It's Time to Act." All attendees will receive copies, as will all Members attending the May Membership Meeting. AHRQ generously provided support for the meeting, and JCAHO is a co-sponsor; additionally, Aventis has just agreed to support the luncheon. We anticipate the final printed report (with an Executive Summary and Index) will be available at the end of May, at which time two copies will be forwarded to all Members and the report broadly distributed.
A Comprehensive Framework for Hospital Performance Evaluation
The document is back from the printers and will be released next week.
Hospital Performance Measures
The second round of voting did not result in the approval of any additional measures, so the initial set is comprised of 39 measures. The publication process for this report has begun, and we anticipate releasing the printed product in June.
Nursing Home Performance Measures
The Steering Committee met in April 2003 and generally concluded its work. The Steering Committee had questions about some of the Abt-proposed measures. CMS and Abt thought these could be addressed in a relatively short time, so CMS has funded Abt to conduct some additional analyses. The additional work means the recommendations for 11 chronic, long-term care measures and 3 post-acute measures will be forwarded to NQF members and the public for review in June or July.
Cancer Care Quality Measures
As noted above, we are negotiating with AHRQ and NCI on the scope and process for phase II. One of the stipulations of the contract is that all meetings be open to Members and non-members. The Board's current policy is that all meeting be open to Members, only, unless the Steering Committee chairs believe there is a compelling reason to open them to non-Members. If the federal government, in fact, fully funds this project then we believe the stipulation is reasonable and should be accepted.
Consumer-Focused Mammography Center Quality Measures
As previously reported, this project will not result in a measure set for consideration under the CDP. Rather, NQF Members and the project Coordinating Committee will recommend measures for a pilot utilizing the recommended measures (to be funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation). The Coordinating Committee held its first meeting in February 2003, and will hold a further meeting in late Summer 2003, following a review of results from focus groups.
Nursing Care Performance Measures
The Steering Committee has been appointed, and its first meeting will be held in Washington, DC, on June 18, 2003.
Home Health Performance Measures
CMS has advised us that due to the timing of its public reporting pilot, it does not anticipate asking NQF to begin this work until November 2003, instead of September 2003.
Standardizing Credentialing for Independent Licensed Practitioners
We continue to seek funding for this project.
Cardiac Surgery Measures
A very successful planning meeting was held in February 2003 with the Society of Thoracic Surgeons, Department of Veterans Affairs, various states, and other entities. There is great enthusiasm for this project, and we currently are seeking funds to undertake it.
Patient Safety Taxonomy
We continue to seek a sponsor to undertake a project to reach consensus on the taxonomy proposed by JCAHO, AMA, and others, but foundation and government support has not materialized to date and currently appears unlikely to do so.
Behavioral Health
We are finalizing the parameters around a planning/workshop effort to explore the dimensions of a project on reaching consensus on a set of performance measures for quality of behavioral health care.
Child Healthcare Quality
NQF recently met with the March of Dimes, AHRQ, National Association of Children's Hospitals and Related Institutions, and others. We have tentatively agreed to hold a larger, invitational follow-up meeting in September to advance potential work in this area.
We continue an active outreach effort that has significantly increased hospital and health system membership.
Nominations for the second John M. Eisenberg Patient Safety Awards close on May 27, 2003. Additional information can be accessed via both the JCAHO and NQF web sites. Like last year, the awards will be presented at the NQF Annual Meeting in September 2003.
After two aborted attempts, we are trying to schedule the third meeting of the Strategic Advisory Council for June or July 2003. As with previous meetings, this will be a closed working meeting.
Twenty-one nominations for the new Advisory Committee on Implementation Strategy and Priorities were received, and eight nominations for the new Advisory Committee on Data Integrity and Availability were received. The Board will review the Governance Committee's recommendations at the May meeting.
Following the Board retreat, volunteers for an ad hoc Member Communications Committee were solicited and two individuals expressed interest. The group held two conference calls and their suggestions will be discussed at the Board meeting.
Again, in response to the Board retreat, volunteers for an ad hoc Consensus Development Process (CDP) Review Committee were sought, and three individuals expressed interest. Because not all Councils were represented, other individuals have been pressed into service. NQF staff has proposed changes, based on various Member feedback, that will be discussed by the Board at the May 14th meeting.