National Voluntary Consensus Standards for Ambulatory Care—Additional Outpatient Measures 2010 

Ambulatory healthcare is the predominant means of providing healthcare services in the United States. In 2006, there were approximately 1.1 billion patient visits across a wide range of settings, including clinician offices, emergency departments, and outpatient departments. Demand and capacity issues have contributed to increased patient wait time and decreased clinician productivity, placing patients at risk for poor health outcomes. NQF has endorsed more than 100 ambulatory care measures through general ambulatory care consensus development projects, as well as more specialized projects focused on clinically enriched administrative data and specialty clinician measures. Those measures lend themselves to addressing larger issues within ambulatory care, such as capacity, productivity, and improving patient outcomes. This report focuses on emergency and urgent care across settings. Ultimately, these 16 measures will provide stakeholders with an improved picture of the quality of ambulatory care delivered in the United States.