Attribution and Variation - story 

The U.S. healthcare system’s rapid movement to performance-based payments and the increase in shared accountability structures to deliver care have heightened the urgency to solve the issue of measure attribution. A soon-to-be-empaneled NQF Committee will analyze the different approaches to assign patients and their quality outcomes to organizations and clinicians and recommend how these approaches might be improved.

Variation presents another challenge: Too many similar measures are used to address the same topic across federal, state, and private payers. These slightly different versions of the same measure add additional, unnecessary reporting burden for providers and can make performance comparisons difficult. NQF will focus on how to minimize unnecessary variation across similar measures by identifying how, why, and where the measure changes are occurring. The project will create a framework for understanding and interpreting variation across measures and promote a common understanding of key terms, concepts, and measure components to help further standardize measurement efforts.

“NQF is a unique resource to address and resolve these complex measurement science issues,” said Christine K. Cassel, MD, president and CEO of NQF. “This work will pave the way for the healthcare system to more strongly drive improvement, benefiting patients across the nation.”

A newly convened NQF Physician Advisory Panel drawn from member physician organizations will serve as a vital sounding board for NQF in addressing challenging measurement science issues at the physician level.