The National Quality Forum’s (NQF) Measure Applications Partnership (MAP) in Washington, DC, recommends significant improvements to measure sets used in federal programs, saying the changes would increase the effect on quality improvement while reducing burdens on providers.
In a recent report, MAP recommends that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) consider removing 51 of 240 measures used in seven federal healthcare value-based purchasing, public reporting, and other programs. MAP recommends improving measure sets in nine additional federal programs. Chip Kahn, MPH, president and CEO of the Federation of American Hospitals, co-chairs the MAP Coordinating Committee with Harold Pincus, MD, professor and vice chair of psychiatry at Columbia University and director of quality and outcomes research at New York-Presbyterian Hospital.
“Getting to measures that matter for improving patient care without creating unnecessary administrative burdens is a balancing act,” Pincus said in a statement released with the report. “To get it right, we need more feedback from patients, frontline doctors, and other healthcare professionals on what works and what needs improvement in healthcare quality measurement.”
The recommendations are drawn from input by more than 150 healthcare leaders from 90 organizations who regularly use measures to participate in MAP discussions. The 2017 guidance focuses on removing measures that are no longer driving improvements in patient care or that do not meet the rigorous scientific criteria for NQF endorsement, the group says.
MAP suggests these changes:
- ESRD Quality Incentive Program: four of 18 current measures suggested for removal
- PPS-Exempt Cancer Hospital Quality Reporting Program: four of 17 measures suggested for removal
- Ambulatory Surgery Center Quality Reporting Program: two of 15 current measures suggested for removal
- Inpatient Psychiatric Facility Quality Reporting Program: seven of 20 current measures suggested for removal
- Outpatient Quality Reporting Program: 13 of 29 current measures suggested for removal
- Inpatient Quality Reporting Program: six of 62 measures suggested for removal
- Home Health Quality Reporting Program: 15 79 current measures suggested for removal.
The MAP report notes that higher value measures, including outcome measures, are needed in the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) and Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) programs. MAP stresses the importance of selecting high-quality measures that drive toward safer and more efficient care.
“Although MAP does not recommend the removal of any measures from MIPS, it emphasizes the need for measures that will drive meaningful improvements in care. MAP recognizes that removal of measures from MIPS must be balanced with the need to ensure all eligible clinicians can participate,” the report says.
