In 1998, A report of the President's Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in the Health Care Industry, proposed the formation of the National Quality Forum as a part of a national agenda for improvement in healthcare delivery. Formed in 1999, NQF's mission statement declared, "The mission of the National Quality Forum is to improve the quality of American healthcare by setting national priorities and goals for performance improvement, endorsing national consensus standards for measuring and publicly reporting on performance, and promoting the attainment of national goals through education and outreach programs."
NQF's vision is that "the NQF will be the convener of key public and private sector leaders to establish national priorities and goals to achieve the Institute of Medicine Aims—health care that is safe, effective, patient-centered, timely, efficient and equitable. NQF-endorsed standards will be the primary standards used to measure and report on the quality and efficiency of healthcare in the United States. The NQF will be recognized as a major driving force for and facilitator of continuous quality improvement of American healthcare quality."
As of October, 2008, NQF has endorsed 514 "national voluntary consensus standards," about 1/4th of these apply to ambulatory, outpatient, clinic-based care. For NCQA recognition as a medical home a physician group must report to its providers and to an external agency their performance on at least 10 of these measures. SETMA has chosen 30 NQF measures on which to report for 2009. In 2010, we will begin reporting on more than 60. Ultimately, it is our goal to report on all NQF measures which apply to ambulatory medicine. SETMA's performance on these measures will be posted to our website as well as reported to our providers.
For a review of the NQF measures on which SETMA is reporting see the NQF section of the Coordination of Care tutorial under the Medical Home Section of this website.
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