Washington, DC—The
National Quality Forum (NQF) launched today its “15 Years and Counting”
campaign, marking the 15th anniversary of its national efforts to improve
the nation’s health and healthcare. Conceptualized by a presidential commission in 1999 and recognized in numerous Federal statutes beginning in 2006, NQF provides the nation with a private, not-for-profit forum, where patients, physicians, hospitals, health plans, insurers, and others come together to define and measure quality healthcare, and recommend how to use those measures in public reporting and payment programs to drive improvement.
“In a relatively short time, NQF’s work with others has made
healthcare better, safer, and more cost efficient and, in this way, has had a
transformational effect on our healthcare system,” said Christine Cassel, MD,
NQF president and CEO. “From making
hospital care safer and improving nursing and maternity care to reducing
hospital readmissions and improving health plan performance, the quality
movement has had a positive impact on virtually every sector of health care.”
Every several weeks, NQF’s newly redesigned homepage, www.qualityforum.org,
will feature a series of 15th-anniversary-focused news briefs that
chronicle NQF’s progress and results as well as profile the efforts of some of
its 420 members to improve quality. Some
highlights of NQF’s 15-year history include:
Establishing a gold standard for quality. NQF’s initial core work focused on evaluating
and endorsing the best measures of healthcare quality. NQF has endorsed 638 quality performance
measures, including 275 used in federal programs, as of April 2014.
Providing an essential forum.
NQF brings together stakeholders from across the broad healthcare
spectrum to discuss, debate, and come to consensus on quality measures, patient
safety recommendations, quality improvement efforts and other related
initiatives. Today, NQF has 420 members
representing patients, providers, health plans, purchasers, industry,
consumers, public and community agencies, and measure development science.
Leadership for quality. NQF
leadership goes beyond quality measure endorsement to serving as a national
convener of stature, bringing together diverse private sector leaders to inform
the nation’s first NationalQuality Strategy and to make recommendations on measures now used in 20+ Federal
public reporting and pay-for-performance programs.
“NQF’s achievements are only possible because of the
creativity and dedication of our volunteers and members, including some 800
individuals, who give their time and expertise to NQF’s work,” said Cassel. “The past 15 years have provided NQF with an
excellent foundation upon which to address the healthcare quality challenges of
today and tomorrow.”
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NQF operates under a
three-part mission to improve the quality of American healthcare by:
- building
consensus on national priorities and goals for performance improvement and
working in partnership to achieve them;
- endorsing
national consensus standards for measuring and publicly reporting on
performance; and
- promoting
the attainment of national goals through education and outreach programs.
