Various motivated organizations took action to make healthcare more value-driven, and banded together under the auspices of the National Quality Forum’s National Priorities Partnership (NPP) to articulate a national vision for making healthcare safer and people healthier. The dozens of federal and private entities that came together in the partnership advocated for the creation of a national blueprint for achieving a high-value healthcare system: the National Quality Strategy (NQS).
Established as part of the Affordable Care Act, the National Quality Strategy launched in 2011 and has helped to focus the nation on quality improvement and measurement efforts to accelerate meaningful change. Shaped with input from the NQF-convened NPP, the NQS priorities for federal and state quality initiatives have touched millions of Americans and have led to improved quality and cost savings, as well as a common language for the nation to talk about health and healthcare quality and the progress made in this area.
“Five years after its release, the National Quality Strategy is fostering alignment across national, federal, state, and private-sector stakeholders to improve health and healthcare quality for all Americans and improvement across health and healthcare quality measures,” said Nancy Wilson, MD, MPH, senior advisor to the director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and executive lead for the National Quality Strategy. “Stakeholders are working together in new and innovative ways to make the National Quality Strategy part of their day-to-day efforts to make health and healthcare better and more affordable for people and communities.”
“We can only achieve a safe, more value-driven healthcare system when all of those involved work together, with a shared vision, common purpose, and coordinated plan of action,” said Helen Darling, Interim President and CEO of NQF. “The National Priorities Partnership not only helped develop the goals of the National Quality Strategy, but it also helped to develop methods to get there with cross-sector, multi-organizational action plans to reduce elective deliveries prior to 39 weeks, advance authentic patient and family engagement, and reduce avoidable hospital admissions and readmissions.”
Today, NPP’s efforts to galvanize action around healthcare quality issues of national importance continue through NQF’s National Quality Partners (NQP). Learn more about NQP’s current initiatives to advance antibiotic stewardship in healthcare and promote high-quality care for people with advanced illness.