In its groundbreaking 2014 report, the NQF Expert Panel on Risk Adjustment for Sociodemographic Factors agreed on core principles: Disparities in health and healthcare should be identified and reduced, and performance measurement should not lead to increased disparities. A new NQF Standing Committee is charged to lead NQF’s efforts to adhere to these core values.
The NQF Disparities Standing Committee (DSC) will enhance
our focus on reducing and eventually eliminating disparities through quality
measurement. In doing so, it will provide guidance to the NQF Board, the
Consensus Standards Approval Committee, and other NQF Standing Committees. A
key focus of the 15- to 17-member Committee will be to review how Standing
Committees are implementing the revised NQF policy that now allows measures that
meet certain criteria to be adjusted for socioeconomic and other demographic
factors. The DSC will evaluate the two-year trial period that will test this
policy change.
Over time, the Committee will assess any emerging evidence of
the impact of adjusted measures on patients and providers, and monitor for
unintended consequences. The Committee will report its findings to the NQF
Board in 2017, after the trial has concluded.
Informed by this
work, the DSC will also be developing a high-level roadmap to better measure
disparities and consider how measurement can proactively reduce disparities.
The call for nominations to the DSC is open until October 9, 2015.