National Quality Forum Announces Official Launch of the Measure Applications Partnership

WASHINGTON, April 6, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The National Quality Forum (NQF) has formalized its agreement with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to serve as the neutral convener of multi-stakeholder groups that will provide input on selecting measures for use in federal public reporting and performance-based payment programs. In turn, NQF has established the Measure Applications Partnership (MAP) and completed its public nominations process, and the NQF Board of Directors has approved its Coordinating Committee and workgroup members.  

"The choice of measures for gauging and rewarding progress is so important that no one perspective is adequate to inform the task," said Janet Corrigan, PhD, MBA, president and CEO of NQF. "MAP's diverse composition—representing the full spectrum of healthcare stakeholders—and NQF's strong background as a neutral convener will be instrumental in ensuring that well-rounded, evidence-based input makes its way to the HHS Secretary for her consideration on which measures to use for public reporting and performance-based payment programs."  

What is MAP, and how will it work?

MAP is a public-private partnership convened by the National Quality Forum for the explicit purpose of providing input to HHS on selecting performance measures for public reporting and performance-based payment programs, as required in The Affordable Care Act.  

MAP will work similarly to NQF's other convening activities, such as the National Priorities Partnership (NPP), which offers all stakeholders and the public at large the opportunity to weigh in and share expertise on aspects of improving healthcare. NQF's established process for developing consensus demonstrates openness, balance of interests, and due process, and enables truly substantive, meaningful private- and public-sector collaboration and shared decision-making. MAP activities, including comment periods and meetings, will be open to the public via the NQF website.  

Through these MAP activities, a wide variety of stakeholders will be able to provide input into HHS's selection of performance measures for public reporting and payment reform programs, which will allow for greater coordination of performance measures across programs, settings, and payers. MAP's balance of interests—representing consumers, businesses and purchasers, labor, health plans, clinicians and providers, communities and states, and suppliers—ensures HHS will receive well-rounded input on performance measure selection.

MAP's work will be guided by the newly released National Quality Strategy, with the intention of selecting measures and providing input that addresses our national healthcare priorities and goals, such as making care safer and ensuring each person and family are engaged as partners in their care.  

The MAP Coordinating Committee and its four workgroups span more than 60 organizations and include 40 subject matter experts and nine federal agencies. Government agencies are ex-officio members and will not vote on items before the committee.  

"MAP will build on the remarkable work done for well over a decade to develop measures that can help us bring greater value into healthcare. We now have hundreds of measures; our challenge is to help users pick the right ones for their application," said Elizabeth McGlynn, PhD, MPP, co-chair of the MAP Coordinating Committee.  

"The Measure Applications Partnership has real potential to enable positive change," said George Isham, MD, MS, co-chair of the MAP Coordinating Committee. "Some outcomes we hope to see from the project include a defragmentation of care delivery, heightened accountability of clinicians and providers, better and more information for consumer's decision making, higher value for spending by aligning payment with performance, and an improvement in the consistent provision of evidence-based care across measured domains. All of that will produce meaningful gains in the health of people and communities."  

The MAP Coordinating Committee will begin providing input to HHS in fall 2011, and HHS will begin utilizing this input in the calendar year 2012. More information about MAP is available here.  

The National Quality Forum (NQF) operates under a three-part mission to improve the quality of American healthcare by:

• building consensus on national priorities and goals for performance improvement and working in partnership to achieve them;
• endorsing national consensus standards for measuring and publicly reporting on performance; and
• promoting the attainment of national goals through education and outreach programs.

SOURCE National Quality Forum