The Opportunity
Social, environmental and behavioral factors can have significant negative impact on health outcomes and economic stability,1 and these along with other upstream determinants contribute to 60 percent of deaths in the United States;2 yet only 3 percent of national health expenditure is spent on prevention, while 97 percent is spent on health care services.3 Population health includes a focus on health and well-being, along with disease and illness, prevention and health promotion, and disparities in outcomes and improvement activities within a group and/or between groups. Developing strategies to strengthen the measurement and analysis of health and well-being given its multi-dimensional focus can be best accomplished using a collaborative approach that includes public health, healthcare delivery systems, and other key sectors whose policies, practices, and procedures influence health. Using the right measures can determine how successful initiatives are in reducing this mortality and excess morbidity and help focus future work to improve population health in appropriate areas.4
As an extension of NQF’s most recent Population Health Endorsement Maintenance project, which was informed by the National Quality Strategy (NQS) three-tiered approach to working with communities to promote healthy living and well-being and the Jacobson and Teutsch commissioned paper on Integrated Approaches for Defining and Measuring Total Population Health, this multiphase project seeks to identify and endorse measures that can be used to assess health and well-being across all levels of analysis, including healthcare providers and communities. The project will evaluate measures that assess health-related behaviors, community-level indicators of health and disease, primary prevention and screening, practices to promote healthy living, community interventions; and modifiable social, economic, environmental determinants of health with demonstrable relationship to health and well-being.
About the Project
This project will evaluate measures that address population health and seek to identify and endorse new measures that can be used to assess health and well-being across all levels of analysis, including healthcare providers and communities.
NQF is particularly interested in:
- measures that assess health-related behaviors (e.g. smoking, diet) and practices to promote healthy living;
- community-level indicators of health and disease (e.g. disease incidence and prevalence) and community interventions (e.g. mass screening);
- primary prevention and screening (e.g. influenza immunization);
- modifiable social, economic, environmental determinants of health with demonstrable relationship to population health outcomes;
- measures of intermediate clinical outcomes or longer term health outcomes, including complications;
- composite measures;
- measures applicable to more than one setting;
- measures that capture broad populations, including children and adolescents where applicable;
- measures that are harmonized with similar measures; and,
- measures that are sensitive to vulnerable populations, including racial/ethnic minorities; and Medicaid populations.
NQF Process
Candidate standards will be considered for NQF endorsement as national voluntary consensus standards. Consensus on the recommendations will be developed through NQF’s formal Consensus Development Process (CDP, Version 1.8). 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 funded under NQF’s contract with the Department of Health and Human Services, Consensus-based Entities Regarding Healthcare Performance Measurement.
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 further information, contact the Health and Well-Being Project team via email at healthandwellbeing@qualityforum.org.
Notes
- Nash DB, Reifsnyder J, Fabius R, Pracilio VP. Population Health: Creating a Culture of Wellness, Sudbury, Massachusetts: Jones & Bartlett Learning; 2011.
- Kindig DA, Asada Y, Booske B, A population health framework for setting national and state health goals, JAMA, 2008;299(17):2081-2083.
- Bipartisan Policy Center. 2012. Lots to lose: How America’s health and obesity crisis threatens our Economic Future. Washington, DC: Bipartisan Policy Center.
- National Research Council. Population Health Implications of the Affordable Care Act: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2013.