The Opportunity

According to CDC, more than 83% of U.S. adults use ambulatory care services annually through visits to primary care physicians, urgent care centers, dialysis centers, and other outpatient providers.¹ Although there has been tremendous research on patient safety in inpatient settings, much less is known about effectively addressing safety issues in ambulatory care. The 1999 National Academy of Medicine publication, To Err is Human, raised awareness of the critical importance of improving patient safety across the healthcare continuum and spurred a national call to measure the quality of care across settings. With the increasing number of individuals seeking outpatient care, it has never been more important to ensure patient safety in ambulatory care settings.

About the Project

For this project, an advisory group will guide NQF staff to conduct an environmental scan of performance measures—including current measures, measures in development, and measure concepts—for ambulatory care settings. Building on NQF’s earlier work that sets measurement standards for ambulatory care, this work will help make care safer and more effective for millions of Americans.

Objectives

For this project, the Advisory Group will:

• Identify measures of patient safety that are in use or have been developed for use regardless of whether they are endorsed;
• Identify measure concepts that have been used in ambulatory care settings;
• Prioritize measures of patient safety; and
• Identify measurement gaps

NQF Process

Over a 12-month period of performance, NQF will conduct an environmental scan to inform the development of priority measures for ACPS non-elderly population, identify measurement gaps, and help inform the development of future priority measures for ACPS. This project is guided by an advisory group that will provide input on the environmental scan. The group will use relevant elements of the NQF’s Consensus Development Process to receive and review comments; however, the process will not involve voting or the endorsement of any product. Throughout this project, NQF will solicit input from the advisory group, including NQF membership and public stakeholders at key points in the project.

Funding

This project is funded under NQF’s contract with the Department of Health and Human Services. For information about the availability of auxiliary aids and services for NQF’s federally funded projects, please visit http://www.medicare.gov/about-us/nondiscrimination/nondiscrimination-notice.html.

Related NQF Work

• Improving Diagnostic Quality & Safety
• Patient Safety 2015
• Patient Safety Endorsement Maintenance (2014)
• Patient Safety Complications (2013): Phase 1 |Phase 2
• Patient Safety Measures (2012)
• Serious Reportable Events
• Safe Practices
• Common Formats

Contact Information

For further information, contact Christy Skipper, Project Manager at cskipper@qualityforum.org.

Notes
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Ambulatory Care Use and Physician office visits. Atlanta, Georgia: CDC; 2017. Available at https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/physician-visits.htm. Last accessed September 2017.