All-Cause Admissions and Readmissions Measures - Final Report 

Unnecessary admissions and avoidable readmissions to acute care facilities are the subject of ever-increasing scrutiny and are an important focus for quality improvement by the healthcare system. Multiple entities across the healthcare system, including: hospitals, post-acute care facilities, skilled nursing facilities, all have a responsibility to ensure high quality care transitions to reduce unplanned readmissions to the hospital and unnecessary admissions. In this project, the All-Cause Admissions and Readmissions Standing Committee endorsed 16 measures, which marks the first time that the NQF portfolio includes measures examining community-level readmissions, pediatric readmissions, and readmission measures in the Post Acute Care and Long Term Care settings, in addition to hospital and health plan readmission measures. Adding these measures to the NQF admissions and readmissions portfolio is a critical step toward promoting care coordination and shared accountability across the care continuum. The topic of adjustment for SDS has been an important discussion at NQF, in addition to the measurement community at large. This project marks the first time that NQF will require that measure developers examine the relationship between SDS factors for their measures and consider updating their measures if there is an appropriate conceptual and empirical relationship, as a condition of endorsement.