The Opportunity

The Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2005 (Patient Safety Act) provides for the development of reporting formats that use common language and definitions (Common Formats) to standardize the reporting of information for healthcare quality and patient safety improvement purposes both clinically and electronically. Use of the AHRQ Common Formats facilitates aggregation and analysis of comparable data at local, regional and national levels.

Any provider may use the AHRQ Common Formats, but Federal confidentiality and privilege protections are only available to providers and listed PSOs working together under the Patient Safety Act. Listed PSOs may contribute non-identified Common Formats data to the Network of Patient Safety Databases (NPSD).

About the Project

NQF, on behalf of AHRQ, is coordinating a process to obtain comments from stakeholders about Common Formats authorized by the Patient Safety Act. The Agency has contracted with NQF to assist with gathering and analyzing feedback. The public has an opportunity to comment on all elements of the Common Formats using the NQF commenting tools. An NQF Expert Panel will review the public comments and provide recommendations to AHRQ.

AHRQ appreciates the time and effort individuals invest in providing comments. All feedback received will be reviewed and considered to guide the development of a revised version.

NQF continues to take comments on Common Formats for Event Reporting – Hospital Version 2.0 and Version 1.2, Common Formats for Event Reporting – Nursing Home Version 1.0, Common Formats – Community Pharmacy Version 1.0, Common Formats – Diagnostic Safety Version 1.0, and Common Formats for Surveillance – Hospital Version 0.3 Beta.

For more information about the Common Formats, visit the AHRQ website at https://www.pso.ahrq.gov/common. The complete set of Common Formats, including generic and event-specific Common Formats, can be found at https://www.psoppc.org/psoppc_web/publicpages/commonFormatsOverview.

Objectives

NQF's Common Formats project enables AHRQ to receive and respond to stakeholder input and to receive expert guidance on refining the Common Formats.

Process

NQF has established a process and tools for receiving comments on the Common Formats beginning with the release of each set and version and continuing thereafter.

The NQF Expert Panel will continue to use relevant elements of NQF’s Consensus Development Process to receive and review comments on new and updated sets of the Common Formats; however, the process will not involve voting or endorsement of any product.

Funding

Funding for this project has been provided through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

Contact Information

For more information, contact 202-783-1300 or commonformats@qualityforum.org.