Overview

For the past 20 years, National Quality Forum (NQF) and our members have been at the forefront of advancing healthcare quality improvement while tackling the healthcare system’s most urgent needs. NQF’s new five-year strategic plan builds on The Care We Need, which provides a roadmap for achieving the healthcare quality we all seek. It aims to build a stronger, more focused, more equitable, and cohesive healthcare quality ecosystem.

STRATEGIC PLAN GOALS

The goals included in our five-year strategic plan reflect how NQF sees the healthcare quality ecosystem, and more specifically, our role in it. The term ecosystem is defined in the business world as the network of organizations—including suppliers, distributors, customers, competitors, government agencies, and so on—involved in the delivery of specific products or services through both competition and cooperation or partnership. Each entity affects the others. The healthcare quality ecosystem includes many stakeholders—healthcare providers, patients and their families, measure developers, payers, government, and clinicians—who need a place to obtain non-biased healthcare measurement information. NQF is that place where discussions can be had, consensus can be reached, and the best science is elevated in measurement and quality improvement.

It is imperative that solutions are driven by multiple stakeholders from across the system because there is no single organization solely responsible for providing solutions. NQF is renewing its commitment to serve as the organization that convenes experts to identify and define measures, collect and share data, set standards, and provide recommendations. NQF synthesizes inputs from across the healthcare quality ecosystem, makes meaning of them, and provides viable recommendations in ways that no other organization can. Through these efforts, NQF serves as a steward of the healthcare quality ecosystem, and this strategy brings everyone together to address the needs of the ecosystem.

NQF’s role in the healthcare quality ecosystem drives the five-year strategic plan’s three main areas of focus, all of which are vital to the long-term success and NQF’s mission. These include:

• Health of Our Mission: Sustain and grow the commitment to be the trusted voice driving measurable health improvements.
• Health of Our People: Ensure staff can contribute, collaborate, and lead to achieve our mission.
• Health of Our Organization: Maintain the long-term viability and sustainability of the organization.