Safe Practices for Better Healthcare

Purpose

In 2003, the National Quality Forum (NQF) endorsed a set of 30 safe practices that should be universally utilized in applicable clinical care settings to reduce the risk of harm to patients. NQF has now formally launched the Safe Practices Consensus Standards Maintenance Committee to review the practices and recommend additions or changes for Members to consider so that the set remains current and appropriate.

Background

The 2003 NQF-endorsed™ safe practices are a set of voluntary consensus standards that serve as a tool for healthcare providers, purchasers, and consumers to identify and encourage practices that will reduce errors and improve care. These practices were not intended to capture all activities that might reduce adverse healthcare events; rather they focused on practices that:

  1. Have strong evidence that they are effective in reducing the likelihood of harming a patient.
  2. Are generalizable (i.e. they may be applied in multiple clinical care settings and/or multiple types of patients).
  3. Are likely to have a significant benefit to patient safety if fully implemented.
  4. Have knowledge about them that is usable by consumers, purchasers, providers, and researchers.

As it undertakes ongoing maintenance of the practices, NQF will continue to focus on practices with these attributes and that also meet the criteria of specificity, benefit, evidence of effectiveness, generalizability, and readiness.

Scope

Maintenance of the set of practices will include:

  • Review of the NQF-endorsed safe practices for continued currency and appropriateness.
  • Recommendation of new safe practices for endorsement and change to currently endorsed practices, as needed.
  • Recommendations related to need of additional specification to address racial, ethnic, gender, or other disparities of care.
  • Recommendations related to possible adaptation to or use in settings of care or conditions other than those for which they were originally endorsed.
  • Evaluation for potential inclusion in the endorsed set of the 27 practices identified in the consensus report as having great promise for further investigation.

Funding

Funding to support the maintenance effort will come from the NQFs general operating funds; other sources of funding will be sought.

For more information, contact Melinda L. Murphy, RN, MS, CNA, at 202.783.1300 or info@qualityforum.org.