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The Opportunity
Healthcare quality and costs are some of the fundamental drivers of today’s health reform movements. Regionalizing emergency medical care services is one policy option for improving care while making more efficient use of medical resources. By analyzing the effectiveness of quality measures already in place and identifying gaps in the measurement of regionalized emergency medical care services, the National Quality Forum (NQF) aims to establish a more detailed picture of how to approach a systematic regionalization of emergency services at the national, state, and regional levels.
About the Project
The Regionalized Emergency Care project seeks to expand NQF’s previous work in the emergency care arena (Emergency Care: Phase I and Emergency Care: II Report), which sought to endorse consensus standards for emergency care provider and system performance. This project, which began in June 2010 and encompasses an environmental scan and a commissioned paper, seeks to identify approaches for systematically regionalizing emergency care services at the national, state, and regional levels. The commissioned paper will include a framework to assess current regionalized emergency medical care services’ measures and guide future measure development while identifying measure gaps. The environmental scan and commissioned paper will help inform a potential Phase II of the project, which would seek to identify a set of performance standards for measuring and reporting the quality of emergency services at the national, state, and regional levels.
Process
In Phase I, a contractor will perform an environmental scan of fully developed or pipeline measures for emergency care at the system level. The environmental scan will help inform the development of a commissioned paper, which will serve as a conceptual framework to guide measure development. Phase I of the project is scheduled to be completed in December 2011. After approval from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) at the completion of Phase I, NQF will proceed with Phase II of the project.
In Phase II, candidate measures will be considered for NQF endorsement as voluntary consensus standards. Agreement around the recommendations will be developed through NQF’s Consensus Development Process (CDP, Version 1.8). This project involves the active participation of representatives from across the spectrum of healthcare stakeholders.
Project Funding
This project is funded under NQF's contract with the Department of Health and Human Services.
Related NQF Work
Contact Information
For further information, contact Akin Demehim, MPA, at 202-783-1300 (x334) or via e-mail at emergencyservices@qualityforum.org.
Regionalizing emergency medical care services is one policy option for improving care while making more efficient use of medical resources. Phase I of this project began in June 2010 and encompasses an environmental scan and a commissioned paper.
An environmental scan will assess fully developed or pipeline measures for emergency care at the system level. The scan was performed through February 2011.
The environmental scan will help inform the development of a commissioned paper, which will serve as a conceptual framework to assess current regionalized emergency medical care service measures and guide future measure development.
Environmental Scan (PDF)
The Call for Nominations for Steering Committee members closed on March 10, 2011. For more information on the formation process, please refer to the Call for Nominations document.
Call for Nominations (PDF)
The commissioned paper will serve as a conceptual framework to asses the current regionalization of emergency care services and help guide future measure development. The work on the commissioned paper will begin in April 2011.
The commissioned paper will include a framework to assess the current regionalization of emergency services and will be brought through NQF's formal Consensus Development Process for endorsement.
The Steering Committee will meet in person on May 23-24, 2011. The meeting will take place at the Crystal City Marriott at Reagan National Airport Hotel, 1999 Thomas Jefferson Highway, Arlington, VA.
The meeting is open to NQF members and the public. We respectfully request that you register so that we can adequately anticipate the amount of seating and number of lines that will be needed.
The Steering Committee met via conference call on June 21, 2011. The Committee reviewed the second draft of the Regionalized Emergency Medical Care Services Framework report, following the recommendations given at the May 23-24 meeting.
Agenda and Dial-Information (PDF)
Meeting Recording (MP3)
Meeting Summary (PDF)
The member voting period closed on October 13, 2011.
Project staff hosted a voting webinar on Wednesday, September 28 from 4:00-5:00 pm with a member of CSAC and a co-chair from the committee. Members and the public had another opportunity to voice their opinions about the framework and ask the Committee co-chair questions. This meeting was open to members and the public.
Dial-in Information and Agenda (PDF)
Meeting Materials (PDF)
Webinar Recording (MP3)
CSAC met on November 2-3. The framework passed the CSAC during this meeting.
No appeals were filed during this time.
