NQF-Convened Group Provides Fourth Annual Recommendations on Quality Measures for 20 Federal Healthcare Programs 

Washington, DC – The National Quality Forum’s (NQF) Measure Applications Partnership (MAP) submitted its recommendations to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) today for approximately 200 performance measures under consideration for use in 20 federal healthcare programs. This is the fourth, consecutive year that MAP has submitted guidance to HHS on value based payment and purchasing programs affecting the care of the nation’s 50 million Medicare beneficiaries and the providers that care for them.

Over a two month period, MAP committees examined each measure under HHS consideration for use in clinician, hospital, and post-acute care/long-term care settings; came to consensus; and made recommendations about each measure. Because some measures were considered for multiple programs, MAP collectively made more than 600 decisions about how specific measures were suited for specific programs.

During this process, MAP received 1,100 public comments—more than double the comments received in 2013—from more than 110 unique commenters.

These comments and MAP’s discussions surfaced several important themes, including:

• Simplifying measurement by moving toward a smaller set of “high-value” measures that measure what matters and are meaningful and valuable to patients and providers alike
• Increasing alignment or use of the same measures across the federal government and between the public and private sectors—reducing cases where the same issue or condition is unnecessarily measured in multiple and different ways
• Continuously assessing what needs to be improved in healthcare and working to ensure that measures exist to foster that improvement.

“MAP is a terrific example of the private sector sitting down at the table with government to work toward a true public good—better quality and value in healthcare,” said Christine K. Cassel, MD, NQF president and CEO.

MAP works in a transparent manner with a carefully balanced composition of participants representing all areas of healthcare, including consumers, purchasers, health plans, clinicians and providers, suppliers, accreditation and certification entities, communities and states, and the federal government, as well as subject matter experts for areas such as health IT and healthcare disparities. In total, more than 150 experts from 90 organizations who regularly use measures and measurement information participated in MAP discussions. The final measure recommendation report is now available online at www.qualityforum.org/MAP. 

The National Quality Forum leads national collaboration to improve health and healthcare quality through measurement. Learn more at www.qualityforum.org.