The Opportunity

The Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2005 (Patient Safety Act) provides for the development of reporting formats that use common language and definitions (Common Formats) to standardize the reporting of information for healthcare quality and patient safety improvement purposes both clinically and electronically. Use of the AHRQ Common Formats facilitates aggregation and analysis of comparable data at local, regional, and national levels.

Any provider may use the AHRQ Common Formats, but Federal confidentiality and privilege protections are only available to providers and listed PSOs working together under the Patient Safety Act. Listed PSOs may contribute non-identified Common Formats data to the Network of Patient Safety Databases (NPSD).

About the Project

NQF, on behalf of AHRQ, collected comments from stakeholders about Common Formats authorized by the Patient Safety Act. The Agency contracted with NQF to assist with gathering and analyzing feedback. The public had the opportunity to comment on all elements of the Common Formats using the NQF commenting tools. An NQF Expert Panel reviewed the public comments and provided recommendations to AHRQ.

AHRQ appreciates the time and effort individuals invested in providing comments. All feedback received was reviewed and considered.

NQF took comments on the following:

• Diagnostic Safety Version 1.0
• Hospital Version 0.3 Beta
• Hospital Version 1.2
• Hospital Version 2.0
• Nursing Home Version 1.0
• Community Pharmacy Version 1.0

For questions about commenting on the Common Formats, please contact AHRQ. For more information about the Common Formats, visit the AHRQ website at https://www.pso.ahrq.gov/common. The complete set of Common Formats, including generic and event-specific Common Formats, can be found at https://www.psoppc.org/psoppc_web/publicpages/commonFormatsOverview.

Objectives

NQF's Common Formats project enabled AHRQ to receive and respond to stakeholder input and to gather expert guidance on refining the Common Formats.

Process

NQF established a process and tools for continuously receiving comments on the Common Formats through the close of commenting on September 13, 2022.

The NQF Expert Panel used relevant elements of NQF’s Consensus Development Process to receive and review comments on new and updated sets of the Common Formats; however, the process did not involve voting or endorsement of any product.

Funding

Funding for this project was provided through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

Contact Information

For more information, please contact AHRQ.