Home > About Us > Leadership > President's Report Archive > September 2000
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The NQF 401(k) benefits plan is fully in place. Health benefits, life insurance and disability benefits are under negotiation, now that we have more than 10 employees on board. (10 employees were needed to get a small group rate.) We hope to have these benefits in place by November.
The conflict of interest policy for staff and Board continues to be worked on, and should be available at the next Board meeting.
Recruitment for a new SFB staff person yielded numerous candidates; several were interviewed; and two offers have been made. The most recent candidate accepted; but backed out at the last minute. A variety of methods are being utilized to now get someone in place as quickly as possible.
All other staff recruitment are being held in abeyance pending receipt of federal funds.
If the current slate of member candidates is approved by the Board, then the NQF will have approximately 80 organizational members. We have also processed the first individual members. Vigorous membership recruitment continues, with targeted efforts towards consumers.
A successful orientation for members and prospective members was held on July 24-25 in Alexandria, Virginia.
Membership dues revenue is above projections.
A $20,000 small conference grant for the NQF Annual Meeting was received from AHRQ.
We responded to the DHHS RFP for hospital performance standards and both patient safety projects (patient safety best practices and medical error "never events") on August 4th. (RFP released in July.) Contract terms now under negotiation. Steering groups have been finalized for all these projects.
Tech transfer/IPRO: The NQF liaison has been designated, but the project is running behind schedule.
A NQF-initiated proposal to sponsor a workshop on quality of care indicators for healthcare of minority populations resulted in a full proposal. This proposal was quickly developed and submitted to the Commonwealth Fund. A meeting to discuss the proposal with Commonwealth Fund management in New York has been scheduled for October 3.
A meeting was held with Department of Veterans Affairs officials regarding possible funding for projects in long term care and mental health.
Discussion with relevant entities continues regarding possible projects on quality indicators in cancer, long term care, newborn screening and a variety of other areas.
A very active outreach effort continues. Numerous presentations on patient safety and healthcare quality issues continue to be made around the country. Representative feedback on these presentations is attached.
NQF has been approached by FDA and PhRMA about co-sponsoring a workshop on promoting safer pharmaceutical product use. The specific question posed was "What investment would produce the most optimal return for reducing risk and maximizing benefit of pharmaceutical therapy." A decision is pending further discussion among the parties.
The NQF co-sponsored with Kaiser Permanente and the NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System a two day workshop in Sunnyvale, California, to further discuss medical error reporting systems. Recommendation from this meeting should be available at the next Board meeting.
An inaugural newsletter was printed and disseminated.
The draft "Consensus Process" document was further disseminated and revised according to comments received.