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National Quality Forum Endorses Clinician-Level Consensus Standards for Ambulatory and Hospital Care

Posted on: Friday, 11 May 2007, 12:00 CDT

WASHINGTON, May 11 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The National Quality Forum (NQF) today announced the endorsement of additional clinician-level national voluntary consensus standards for ambulatory and hospital care for a two year period of time. The 35 consensus standards expand NQF's ongoing activities to endorse standardized measures for gauging and publicly reporting the quality of care provided by clinicians in the ambulatory and hospital settings.

Twenty nine of the measures were recently developed by the American Medical Association Physician Consortium for Performance Improvement (AMA PCPI) and the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) under a contract from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and have not undergone significant field-testing. The NQF Board of Directors recently approved an endorsement designation to allow for "Time Limited" endorsement for measures that satisfy all NQF criteria, but have not been adequately field tested. Under this time-limited designation, measure developers would be required to submit a plan for field testing. Once the field testing has been completed and measures have been demonstrated to produce valid and reliable results, NQF would remove the "time limitation" on the endorsement designation.

The action represents the formal consensus of more than 350 healthcare providers, consumer groups, professional associations, purchasers, federal agencies, and research and quality improvement organizations. All of these standards were vetted through NQF's formal Consensus Development Process, with multiple stakeholder input, to achieve special legal standing as voluntary consensus standards. Each measure was evaluated against NQF-endorsed measure evaluation criteria of importance, scientific soundness, feasibility, and usability.

NQF has previously endorsed 86 clinician-level measures for ambulatory care. These 35 measures bringing to 121 the total number of NQF-endorsed(TM) voluntary consensus standards for clinician-level performance.

The 35 measures approved for time-limited endorsement are: Bone and Joint Conditions -- Osteoporosis -- Osteoporosis: Communication with the physician Managing Ongoing Care Post-fracture -- Osteoporosis: Screening or Therapy for Women Aged 65 Years and Older -- Osteoporosis: Management Following Fracture -- Osteoporosis: Pharmacologic Therapy Eye Care -- Primary Open Angle Glaucoma: Optic Nerve Evaluation -- Age-Related Macular Degeneration: Dilated Macular Examination -- Diabetic Retinopathy: Documentation of Presence or Absence of Macular Edema and Level of Severity of Retinopathy -- Diabetic Retinopathy: Communication with the Physician Managing Ongoing Diabetes Care Geriatrics -- Medication reconciliation -- Urinary incontinence: Assessment of Presence or Absence of Urinary Incontinence in Women -- Urinary incontinence: Characterization of Urinary Incontinence in Women -- Urinary incontinence: Plan of Care for Urinary Incontinence in Women -- Falls: Screening for Fall Risk Emergency Care -- Electrocardiogram Performed for Non-traumatic Chest Pain (Ambulatory and Hospital) -- Aspirin at Arrival for AMI (Ambulatory and Hospital) -- Electrocardiogram Performed for Syncope (Ambulatory only) -- Vital Signs for Community-Acquired Bacterial Pneumonia (Hospital only) -- Assessment of Oxygen Saturation for Community-Acquired Bacterial Pneumonia (Ambulatory and Hospital) -- Assessment of Mental Status for Community-Acquired Bacterial Pneumonia (Ambulatory and Hospital) -- Empiric Antibiotic for Community-Acquired Bacterial Pneumonia (Ambulatory and Hospital) Cardiac Surgery -- Use of IMA in isolated CABG (Society for Thoracic Surgeons (STS)) -- Use of IMA in isolated CABG (CMS) -- Pre-op beta blocker in patient with isolated CABG (STS) -- Pre-op beta blocker in patient with isolated CABG (CMS) -- Anti-platelet medication on discharge (STS) -- Beta blocker on discharge (STS) Peri-operative care -- Venous Thromboembolism (VTE) Prophylaxis Stroke -- Deep Vein Thrombophlebitis (DVT) Prophylaxis for Ischemic Stroke or Intracranial Hemorrhage -- Discharged on Antiplatelet Therapy -- Anticoagulant Therapy Prescribed for Atrial Fibrillation at Discharge -- Tissue Plasminogen Activator (t-PA) Considered -- Screening for Dysphagia -- Consideration of Rehabilitation Services -- Carotid Imaging Reports -- Computed Tomography (CT) or Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) Reports

Additionally, NQF endorsed nine research recommendations for further development of clinician-level performance measures:

-- Research Recommendations: General issues -- Ambulatory Care setting -- Research Recommendations: Eye Care -- Research Recommendations: Geriatrics -- Ambulatory Care setting -- Research Recommendations: GI conditions -- Research Recommendations: Skin conditions -- Research Recommendations: General issues -- Hospital setting -- Research Recommendations: Stroke -- Research Recommendations: Geriatrics -- Hospital setting -- Research Recommendations: Cardiac Surgery

NQF is a voluntary consensus standard-setting organization. Any party may request reconsideration of the recommendations, in whole or part, by notifying NQF in writing no later than June 11, 2007 (601 13th Street, NW, Suite 500 North, Washington, DC, 20005; fax 202.783.3434). For an appeal to be considered, the notification letter must include information clearly demonstrating that the appellant has interests that are directly and materially affected by the NQF-endorsed(TM) recommendations and that the NQF decision has had (or will have) an adverse effect on those interests.

NQF's mission is to dramatically improve quality of care. Its portfolio includes the endorsement of performance measurement consensus standards, educational programs for health care leaders on key environmental trends, and award recognition programs. NQF, a non-profit organization (http://www.qualityforum.org/) with diverse stakeholders across the public and private health sectors, was established in 1999 and is based in Washington, DC.

National Quality Forum

CONTACT: Jerry Mullins, +1-202-974-8305, for the National Quality Forum

Web site: http://www.qualityforum.org/

Source: PRNewswire-USNewswire

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