Opportunity to Participate on NQF Committees

Building on prior efforts that support consumer and purchaser decision-making in health care based on cost and quality, the National Quality Forum (NQF) is establishing new Standing Committees to review performance measures in high priority areas: cost and resource use measures, and measures of hospital admissions and readmissions. These projects will address issues that are critically important to consumers and purchasers. By injecting your coalition voice into the endorsement process and into oversight of the portfolio of measures in these topic areas, you can help ensure that the measures used for quality improvement and CMS reporting and payment programs are measures that matter to consumers and purchasers. 

Nominations for these Standing Committees are due on November 12, 2013 and additional information on each topical area is provided below and on the NQF website. Please note that if you are selected to serve on a Standing Committee, you will be expected to serve for a two- or three-year term, and participate in conference calls, web and in-person meetings, and offline measure reviews.

• Cost and Resource Use: Building on previous work this effort will continue to evaluate cost and resource use measures. Initially, this work will focus on cardiovascular and pulmonary conditions.

• All-Cause Admissions and Readmissions: This work will build on a number of previous NQF projects addressing readmissions related to specific conditions or settings, as well as a 2012 project examining all-cause readmission measures. This Committee is particularly important because the Medicare Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program, a pay-for-performance program that ties a financial penalty for hospitals to excess readmissions, is required to use NQF-endorsed measures of readmissions.

We hope you will seize this opportunity and join the Consumer-Purchaser Alliance in our efforts to drive health care quality and affordability for consumers and purchasers.

For support from the Consumer-Purchaser Alliance staff in learning more about these projects or submitting a nomination, please get in touch with us by phone or email:

• Stephanie Glier, Senior Policy Analyst, sglier@pbgh.org or 415-615-6341 
• Emma Kopleff, Senior Policy Advisor, ekopleff@nationalpartnership.org or 202-238-4875