The Opportunity
As part of NQF’s ongoing work with performance measurement for patients undergoing surgery, this project seeks to identify and endorse performance measures for accountability and quality improvement that address a number of surgical areas including cardiac, thoracic, vascular, orthopedic, neurosurgery, urologic and general surgery. Twenty-four surgical measures endorsed prior to 2011 are due for maintenance and will be re-evaluated against the most recent NQF measure evaluation criteria along with newly submitted measures.
The rate of surgical procedures is increasing annually. In 2010, 51.4 million inpatient surgeries in the United States were performed, and 53.3 million procedures in ambulatory surgery centers were completed.1 Ambulatory surgery centers account for 43 percent of all same-day surgery in the United States, and have been the fastest growing provider type participating in Medicare.2
NQF has endorsed surgical measures through a variety of projects beginning in 2004 with the National Voluntary Consensus Standards for Cardiac Surgery. Most recently, the Surgical Endorsement Maintenance 2010 evaluated general and specialty surgical care across settings of care. The current NQF surgery portfolio includes measures focused on key surgical care processes and outcomes for surgical procedures.
About the Project
A multi-stakeholder Standing Committee will be established to evaluate newly submitted measures and make recommendations for which measures should be endorsed as consensus standards. This Committee will work to identify and endorse new performance measures for accountability and quality improvement that specifically address surgical care processes, including cardiac, thoracic, vascular, orthopedic, neurosurgery, and general surgery. Additionally, the Committee will evaluate consensus standards previously endorsed by NQF under the maintenance process.
NQF Process
Measures will be considered for NQF endorsement as national voluntary consensus standards. Consensus on the recommendations developed through NQF’s formal Consensus Development Process (CDP, Version 1.9). This project involves the active participation of representatives from across the spectrum of healthcare stakeholders and will be guided by a Standing Committee.
Funding
This project is supported under a contract provided by 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
Contact Information
For more information, please contact Wunmi Isijola or Andrew Lyzenga at 202-783-1300 or surgery@qualityforum.org.
Notes
1National Hospital Discharge Survey: 2010 table, Procedures by selected patient characteristics - Number by procedure category and age
2http://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Provider-Enrollment-and-Certification/SurveyCertificationGenInfo/Downloads/ASC_HAI_MAP.pdf